Trophic interactions in a changing world

W.H. Van der Putten, P.C. de Ruiter, T.M. Bezemer, J.A. Harvey, M.J. Wassen, V. Wolters

    Research output: Contribution to journal/periodicalArticleScientificpeer-review

    145 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Across the biosphere, rapid and accelerating changes in land use, climate and atmospheric composition driven primarily by anthropogenic forces are known to exert major influences on the productivity, biodiversity and sustainable provision of ecosystem goods and services. Thus far, many studies assessing the ecological consequences of global change have focussed on single trophic levels. However, understanding these changes and predicting their consequences may benefit from unravelling how interactions between primary producers, primary, and secondary consumers (plants, herbivores and carnivores) are being affected. Conservation and restoration may be improved when assessing species and their interactions on appropriate scales, while acknowledging that above- and belowground biota are ecologically linked. Selection pressures on one species may depend on others, so that species loss means more for diversity than just loss of a single taxon. It may also result in the loss of other species of the same or different trophic levels and in the dilution, or even loss, of various selection pressures. We review a number of discussions on trophic interactions in a changing world in relation to (i) the scale of ecosystem response to environmental change with emphasis on the soil subsystem, (ii) the linkage of above- and belowground subsystems and (iii) natural selection and the stability of community structure and ecosystem functioning. We discuss the need to bring together isolated sub-disciplines of ecology in order to understand the implications of global changes for ecosystem processes. [KEYWORDS: Biodiversity; Global human-induced changes; Trophic level communities; Foodweb; Stablility; Ecosystem services; Sustainable land use; Above–belowground interactions]
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)487-494
    JournalBasic and Applied Ecology
    Volume5
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2004

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