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Recovery of food webs following natural physical disturbances
Author(s) -
Spiller David A.,
Schoener Thomas W.,
PioviaScott Jonah
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/nyas.13921
Subject(s) - natural (archaeology) , environmental science , natural food , biology , food science , paleontology
The objective of our paper is to develop a mechanistic conceptual framework for how food webs recover from natural physical disturbances. We summarize our work on the effect of hurricanes on island food webs and review other studies documenting how other types of physical disturbances (including fires, floods, and volcanic eruptions) alter food–web interactions. Based on these case studies, we propose that four factors play an important role in food‐web succession: (1) disturbance intensity, (2) sequential recovery/colonization of successively higher trophic levels, (3) tradeoffs between growth rate of organisms at different successional stages and susceptibility to consumers, and (4) detritus including autochthonous and allochthonous sources. Studies on river flooding and islands disturbed by hurricanes indicate that energy flow is higher and trophic cascades are stronger during recovery than when the food web is at a steady state. We suggest that as consumer species colonize during succession, they may change the species or phenotypic composition of their food supply from highly vulnerable to less vulnerable items, thereby weakening both bottom‐up and top‐down effects throughout the food web. High inputs of detritus caused by disturbances can amplify bottom‐up effects during early succession, and subsequently alter top‐down effects.