Food Webs最新文献

{"title":"Butterflies with a taste for elephant dung: Puddling of adult butterflies on elephant dung in India's Western Ghats","authors":"N.R. Anoop ,&nbsp;Ezhuthupallickal Benny Femi ,&nbsp;M.A. Yathumon ,&nbsp;Aswaj Punnath","doi":"10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00323","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Elephants ingest a large quantity of plant material across the landscape and concentrate it at specific locations through dung and urine excretion, greatly enhancing local nutrient availability for various organisms. During our two-year study in India's Western Ghats, we documented 26 butterfly species from five families puddling on elephant dung. This observation suggests that elephant dung may offer mineral supplementation, which could contribute to the fitness and reproductive physiology of butterflies in elephant habitats.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":38084,"journal":{"name":"Food Webs","volume":"37 ","pages":"Article e00323"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49863117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The yellow armadillo as a potential predator of medium-sized vertebrates","authors":"Mario Luis Chatellenaz ,&nbsp;Javier Mestres","doi":"10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00321","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00321","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Studies on the predation of vertebrates by armadillos are scarce, and most of them refer to the consumption of small reptiles and rodents, attributing the remains of larger prey to the ingestion of carrion. However, there is evidence that some species of the Chlamyphoridae family may have predatory habits, killing and consuming even larger prey. In this study, we document predation of a black-and-white tegu (<em>Salvator merianae</em><span>) and a gray brocket deer (</span><em>Mazama gouazoubira</em>) by a yellow armadillo (<em>Euphractus sexcinctus</em>) in the northeast of Argentina, and we review attacks and captures of other medium- to large-sized vertebrates by this armadillo. The results suggest that the yellow armadillo could play a hitherto underestimated role in the food webs of the communities of which they are a part.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":38084,"journal":{"name":"Food Webs","volume":"37 ","pages":"Article e00321"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49863119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cicada feast and food links: Grey-headed flying fox preys on black prince in south-East Australia","authors":"Ivan Sazima ,&nbsp;Marlies Sazima","doi":"10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00318","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Cicada mass emergence offers a plentiful and energy-rich food source for a variety of predators, mainly birds and spiders. Megabats (Pteropodidae) mostly feed on nectar and fruits, but occasionally prey on insects such as sap-sucking cicadas and fruit-eating beetles. We observed and documented with photographs the behavioural repertoire of the Grey-headed Flying Fox </span><span><em>Pteropus poliocephalus</em></span> while hunting and consuming the Black Prince cicada <em>Psaltoda plaga</em><span> in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The bats used three main tactics while hunting the cicadas: a) flushing and/or catching cicadas on tree foliage while clambering over branches or landing on the foliage, b) lunging from a perch after spotting a resting cicada, and c) pursuing cicadas on the wing. Upon securing a cicada the bats flew off and landed on a feeding perch, where they chewed the prey and spat the remains as a pellet below this perch. On the ground, the pellets were usually sought by large ants that tore off pieces from these remains, the ants transporting them to the nest. Small ants aggregated on the pellets probably to seek the remaining sap, after which they left the pellets. The above described events showed three main food links: a) cicadas feeding on plant sap, b) bats preying on cicadas and spitting the remains as pellets, and c) ants feeding on bat pellets. The links illustrate a food chain that include plants, cicadas, bats, and ants. Additional food links we observed were: 1) cicadas feeding on different plants, 2) cicadas preyed on by diurnal animals, 3) dead cicadas consumed by ants, 4) dead bats consumed by birds, and 5) nocturnal raptorial bird that may prey on bats. This report seems the first to mention food links within a megabat-insect trophic interaction.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":38084,"journal":{"name":"Food Webs","volume":"37 ","pages":"Article e00318"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49863118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Putting a lake together: Integrating synthetic data and field observations to build a better food web","authors":"Jonathan J. Borrelli ,&nbsp;Matthew S. Schuler ,&nbsp;William D. Hintz ,&nbsp;Mary Alldred ,&nbsp;Brian Mattes ,&nbsp;Candace Schermerhorn ,&nbsp;Erika Yates ,&nbsp;Lawrence W. Eichler ,&nbsp;Mark A. Lucius ,&nbsp;Rick A. Relyea","doi":"10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00315","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00315","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Food webs provide context to understand how ecological communities will respond to environmental change, but revealing their structure typically relies upon time-intensive sampling and analysis of species' diets. As a result, all food web models require some unavoidable simplifications because of limited data availability, whether temporally, spatially, or taxonomically. Large databases of published trophic interactions have made this process somewhat easier, but knowledge gaps persist. We combine the use of databases with extensive field surveys, including gut-content analysis, to generate a food web for Lake George, NY. Including aquatic plants, phytoplankton<span>, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates<span>, and fish, our analysis identified 279 genera in the lake involved in 1910 interactions. After removing genera with no identified interactions or improbable interactions and grouping some genera into higher categories, the food web included 49 nodes with 484 interactions among them. The network structure of the inferred Lake George food web exhibits several common patterns such as relatively few trophic levels and the prevalence of tritrophic chains. Our results suggest that constructing food webs from databases provides a useful first step to determine topology. However, in situ sampling allowed us to account for additional interactions, as only 50 of the 106 directly observed interactions between fish and their prey were also found in published databases. Finally, we highlight the need to focus on developing a better understanding of herbivory in lakes, as species interactions among the diverse plankton and macroinvertebrate populations are not well known.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":38084,"journal":{"name":"Food Webs","volume":"37 ","pages":"Article e00315"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49863474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Microplastics are transferred in a trophic web between zooplankton and the amphibian Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum): Effects on their feeding behavior","authors":"Diana L. Manríquez-Guzmán ,&nbsp;Diego J. Chaparro-Herrera ,&nbsp;Pedro Ramírez-García","doi":"10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00316","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00316","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Microplastics are contaminants that are often ingested, bioaccumulated, and transferred through food chain, affecting aquatic ecosystems<span><span>. Zooplankton is susceptible to ingesting microplastics, so it is probably a vector that transfers microplastics to higher trophic levels. </span>Cladocerans are a diet of amphibian larvae. Amphibians' survival is under threat worldwide due to their sensitivity to pollution. This work aimed to determine the transfer of zooplankton microplastics to </span></span><span><em>Ambystoma mexicanum</em></span><span> larvae (known as axolotl), for which we evaluated two responses in the first five weeks of development: 1) functional response of the larvae and 2) examination of their feces. Cladocerans were exposed to a diet of phytoplankton<span> and microplastics to use them as food for axolotl larvae. Five axolotl larvae were randomly selected each week, each fed with a different concentration of cladocerans, and prey consumption was recorded for each larva. Finally, all the feces of the axolotls expelled after feeding were digested and examined under a light microscope. We found that microplastics were transferred from the cladocerans to </span></span><em>A. mexicanum</em>. Microplastics negatively affected the larval feeding behavior since the axolotls fed zooplankton exposed to microplastics consumed less prey than those of the control group. We also observed that microplastics were present in 78% of the feces. Microplastics reduce the feeding of juvenile <em>A. mexicanum</em>, an endemic amphibian of Mexico, in critical danger of extinction.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":38084,"journal":{"name":"Food Webs","volume":"37 ","pages":"Article e00316"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49863113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of urbanization on the efficiency and composition of vertebrate scavengers","authors":"Jessica R. Patterson ,&nbsp;Nicolas Szabo ,&nbsp;James C. Beasley","doi":"10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00317","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>As human populations continue to expand, urbanization will increase and impact ecosystem processes, contribute to habitat fragmentation<span>, and alter community composition of species. While some species can adapt to the rapidly changing environment, urbanization can favor generalist species and reshape food webs, which may result in ecological instability. Determining how wildlife respond to urbanization is necessary for management and city planning purposes in order to create suburban areas where humans and wildlife can coexist. One area that needs more focus is the effects of suburbanization on scavenging species, and how land development can alter scavenging dynamics and the redistribution of carrion-derived nutrients within food webs. We used motion activated cameras to monitor experimentally placed fish carcasses in riparian zones<span> of suburban and rural areas in northeast Georgia, USA. We conducted 300 trials across both landscapes that were scavenged by 7 mammalian, 2 avian, and 2 reptilian species. Our results revealed fish carrion within riparian areas was readily consumed by terrestrial scavengers. However, carcass fate (whether the carcass was scavenged or not) and carcass persistence differed between suburban and rural landscapes. Carcasses were scavenged by vertebrates less often and persisted longer in rural landscapes. Species richness was similar and mesocarnivores were the predominant scavengers in both landscapes. However, scavenging by the Virginia opossum (</span></span></span><span><em>Didelphis virginiana</em></span>) was more prevalent in the suburban landscape relative to the rural landscape (61% and 36% of scavenging events, respectively). While raccoons (<span><em>Procyon lotor</em></span><span>) scavenged carcasses fairly equally across both landscapes, the American black bear (</span><em>Ursus americanus</em>) and red-shouldered hawk (<span><em>Buteo</em><em> lineatus</em></span>) scavenged more frequently in rural areas. Our data suggest that suburban species, especially opossums, may be highly adapted to foraging in an anthropogenic environment. Additionally, nutrients from aquatic carcasses near water sources can readily move into terrestrial environments through scavenging. These results contribute to the growing body of scavenging ecology and the effects of urbanization on wildlife.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":38084,"journal":{"name":"Food Webs","volume":"37 ","pages":"Article e00317"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49863473","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A necropsy of negative human-puma interaction in the high Andes: Are pumas in poor body condition more likely to attack livestock?","authors":"Hector A. Luque-Machaca ,&nbsp;Cristhian J. Machaca-Sillo ,&nbsp;Joel I. Pacheco","doi":"10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00320","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Globally, it is not yet clear whether particular individuals of apex predators with specific body conditions are more likely to attack livestock. In the Andes, attacks on livestock by pumas (</span><em>Puma concolor</em><span><span>) represent a recurring problem that, consequently, leads to the persecution and lethal removal of this predator by ranchers. However, although the anthropic motivations that lead to the lethal removal of pumas are known, the body conditions of the individuals that attack livestock are still unknown. From 2015 to 2016, three pumas were killed by ranchers after attacks on livestock in the department of Cuzco, at an average elevation of 4415 m, in southeastern Peru. The </span>necropsy of these individuals revealed that they were all deviating from normal health and body conditions (cachexia, tarsal fracture, teeth problems and unusual stomach content). Although based on only three individuals, our findings allow us to hypothesize that these individuals did not meet the necessary body conditions for hunting wild prey. This could increase their states of hunger and lead them to forage in livestock landscapes, which in turn could serve as auxiliary foraging sites with more energetically profitable prey. We consider it essential to develop further research efforts to understand what ecological conditions cause pumas to be more vulnerable to human-induced mortality. This information is essential to further understand the characteristics of the ecological niche of these large predators in current anthropic contexts and, therefore, to direct coherent conservation strategies.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":38084,"journal":{"name":"Food Webs","volume":"37 ","pages":"Article e00320"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49863116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Novel observations of cleaning interactions between eastern grey kangaroos and three Australian bird species","authors":"Ben T. Hirsch","doi":"10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00319","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>A variety of animals have been observed cleaning ectoparasites off of another species. In terrestrial systems, the most common interactions involve birds cleaning mammals. Despite the high density and wide distribution of kangaroos across Australia, there are almost no known records of bird-kangaroo cleaner relationships. Here I report multiple observations of bird-kangaroo interactions recorded with camera traps. This study replicates a previous report of Willie Wagtail (<em>Rhipidura leucophyrs</em>) cleaning, as well as details observations of two new bird species observed perching on Eastern grey kangaroos (<em>Macropus giganteus</em>). These results indicate bird-macropod cleaning interactions may be more common than previously reported.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":38084,"journal":{"name":"Food Webs","volume":"37 ","pages":"Article e00319"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49863472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ecological gatekeeping: Black-backed jackals are left to crave carrion in absence of large facultative scavengers","authors":"Haemish Melville,&nbsp;Maxine Gaines,&nbsp;Kerry Slater,&nbsp;W. Maartin Strauss","doi":"10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00310","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00310","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Carrion removal is a key ecological function of scavengers, and they promptly dispose of carcasses in those large African conservation areas where predator assemblages remain intact. Despite its species richness, the grassland biome is critically threatened in southern Africa, and the predator assemblage is no longer intact in most of the biome. We used camera traps to monitor scavenger activity at five blue wildebeest (<em>Connochaetes taurinus</em>) carcasses on the Telperion Nature Reserve, characterized by rocky highveld grassland. We found that, in absence of larger vertebrate scavengers, black-backed jackals (<em>Canis mesomelas</em>) were unable to access fresh blue wildebeest carcasses, gaining access only once invertebrate action opened the skin. We also observed black-backed jackals eating flies accumulating on grass near to carcasses. These observations show that the avenues of resource provisioning by carcasses are not limited to direct carrion consumption. Moreover, they raise questions about potentially important cascading effects of not having intact predator assemblages, in smaller conservation areas.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":38084,"journal":{"name":"Food Webs","volume":"37 ","pages":"Article e00310"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49863471","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spectral radius is a better metric than weighted NODF to detect network nestedness: Linking species coexistence to network structure using a plant – larval sawfly bipartite","authors":"Bin Lan ,&nbsp;Xingyu Zhou ,&nbsp;Nan Yang ,&nbsp;Shucun Sun","doi":"10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00303","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00303","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p></p><ul><li><span>1.</span><span><p>Network nestedness<span> describes an interaction pattern, wherein specialist species interact with a subset of partner species. Antagonistic networks are predicted to not be nested, because nestedness indicates a high intensity of interspecific competition, which compromises species coexistence. However, network nestedness is commonly observed in antagonistic networks, and the discrepancy between prediction and observation has not been fully resolved.</span></p></span></li><li><span>2.</span><span><p>One of underlying factors explaining this discrepancy is the imperfection of metrics to detect network nestedness. However, studies comparing network metrics often fail to resolve which metric works best, presumably because they lack specific criteria.</p></span></li><li><span>3.</span><span><p>We compared the results of the most commonly used metrics (weighted NODF) and a later proposed metric (spectral radius) to measure the nestedness of a quantitative plant - larval sawfly bipartite (including 8 sawfly species and 66 plant species, identified by gut DNA metabacoding of larvae). We also determined whether the sawfly species can coexist in terms of their dietary differences. Because nested structure is not likely to be compatible with species coexistence, we assumed that the metric identifying a non-nested structure is superior to the other.</p></span></li><li><span>4.</span><span><p>The two metrics led to contrasting nestedness levels. Both observational and preference networks were found to be nested using weighted NODF, but was not nested using the spectral radius approach.</p></span></li><li><span>5.</span><span><p>The dietary differences were significant among each sawfly species pair for both observational and preference networks, indicating low interspecific competitiveness and a high potential for species coexistence.</p></span></li><li><span>6.</span><span><p>These results indicate that the spectral radius metric is superior to weighted NODF to detecting network nestedness and should be used in future network studies.</p></span></li></ul></div>","PeriodicalId":38084,"journal":{"name":"Food Webs","volume":"36 ","pages":"Article e00303"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48036834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}