Predator diversity and abundance provide little support for the enemies hypothesis in forests of high tree diversity.

Predatory arthropods can exert strong top-down control on ecosystem functions. However, despite extensive theory and experimental manipulations of predator diversity, our knowledge about relationships between plant and predator diversity--and thus information on the relevance of experimental finding...

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Autores principales:	Andreas Schuldt, Sabine Both, Helge Bruelheide, Werner Härdtle, Bernhard Schmid, Hongzhang Zhou, Thorsten Assmann
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2011
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/ed1b8fc2369b4cd9b683d078a7970130
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:ed1b8fc2369b4cd9b683d078a79701302021-11-18T06:49:06ZPredator diversity and abundance provide little support for the enemies hypothesis in forests of high tree diversity.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0022905https://doaj.org/article/ed1b8fc2369b4cd9b683d078a79701302011-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/21829551/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Predatory arthropods can exert strong top-down control on ecosystem functions. However, despite extensive theory and experimental manipulations of predator diversity, our knowledge about relationships between plant and predator diversity--and thus information on the relevance of experimental findings--for species-rich, natural ecosystems is limited. We studied activity abundance and species richness of epigeic spiders in a highly diverse forest ecosystem in subtropical China across 27 forest stands which formed a gradient in tree diversity of 25-69 species per plot. The enemies hypothesis predicts higher predator abundance and diversity, and concomitantly more effective top-down control of food webs, with increasing plant diversity. However, in our study, activity abundance and observed species richness of spiders decreased with increasing tree species richness. There was only a weak, non-significant relationship with tree richness when spider richness was rarefied, i.e. corrected for different total abundances of spiders. Only foraging guild richness (i.e. the diversity of hunting modes) of spiders was positively related to tree species richness. Plant species richness in the herb layer had no significant effects on spiders. Our results thus provide little support for the enemies hypothesis--derived from studies in less diverse ecosystems--of a positive relationship between predator and plant diversity. Our findings for an important group of generalist predators question whether stronger top-down control of food webs can be expected in the more plant diverse stands of our forest ecosystem. Biotic interactions could play important roles in mediating the observed relationships between spider and plant diversity, but further testing is required for a more detailed mechanistic understanding. Our findings have implications for evaluating the way in which theoretical predictions and experimental findings of functional predator effects apply to species-rich forest ecosystems, in which trophic interactions are often considered to be of crucial importance for the maintenance of high plant diversity.Andreas SchuldtSabine BothHelge BruelheideWerner HärdtleBernhard SchmidHongzhang ZhouThorsten AssmannPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 6, Iss 7, p e22905 (2011)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Andreas Schuldt Sabine Both Helge Bruelheide Werner Härdtle Bernhard Schmid Hongzhang Zhou Thorsten Assmann Predator diversity and abundance provide little support for the enemies hypothesis in forests of high tree diversity.
description	Predatory arthropods can exert strong top-down control on ecosystem functions. However, despite extensive theory and experimental manipulations of predator diversity, our knowledge about relationships between plant and predator diversity--and thus information on the relevance of experimental findings--for species-rich, natural ecosystems is limited. We studied activity abundance and species richness of epigeic spiders in a highly diverse forest ecosystem in subtropical China across 27 forest stands which formed a gradient in tree diversity of 25-69 species per plot. The enemies hypothesis predicts higher predator abundance and diversity, and concomitantly more effective top-down control of food webs, with increasing plant diversity. However, in our study, activity abundance and observed species richness of spiders decreased with increasing tree species richness. There was only a weak, non-significant relationship with tree richness when spider richness was rarefied, i.e. corrected for different total abundances of spiders. Only foraging guild richness (i.e. the diversity of hunting modes) of spiders was positively related to tree species richness. Plant species richness in the herb layer had no significant effects on spiders. Our results thus provide little support for the enemies hypothesis--derived from studies in less diverse ecosystems--of a positive relationship between predator and plant diversity. Our findings for an important group of generalist predators question whether stronger top-down control of food webs can be expected in the more plant diverse stands of our forest ecosystem. Biotic interactions could play important roles in mediating the observed relationships between spider and plant diversity, but further testing is required for a more detailed mechanistic understanding. Our findings have implications for evaluating the way in which theoretical predictions and experimental findings of functional predator effects apply to species-rich forest ecosystems, in which trophic interactions are often considered to be of crucial importance for the maintenance of high plant diversity.
format	article
author	Andreas Schuldt Sabine Both Helge Bruelheide Werner Härdtle Bernhard Schmid Hongzhang Zhou Thorsten Assmann
author_facet	Andreas Schuldt Sabine Both Helge Bruelheide Werner Härdtle Bernhard Schmid Hongzhang Zhou Thorsten Assmann
author_sort	Andreas Schuldt
title	Predator diversity and abundance provide little support for the enemies hypothesis in forests of high tree diversity.
title_short	Predator diversity and abundance provide little support for the enemies hypothesis in forests of high tree diversity.
title_full	Predator diversity and abundance provide little support for the enemies hypothesis in forests of high tree diversity.
title_fullStr	Predator diversity and abundance provide little support for the enemies hypothesis in forests of high tree diversity.
title_full_unstemmed	Predator diversity and abundance provide little support for the enemies hypothesis in forests of high tree diversity.
title_sort	predator diversity and abundance provide little support for the enemies hypothesis in forests of high tree diversity.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2011
url	https://doaj.org/article/ed1b8fc2369b4cd9b683d078a7970130
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Predator diversity and abundance provide little support for the enemies hypothesis in forests of high tree diversity.

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