Entomology
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/11813
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Item Richness and species composition of arboreal arthropods affected by nutrients and predators: a press experiment(Oecologia, 2006) Gruner, Daniel; Taylor, AndrewA longstanding goal for ecologists is to understand the processes that maintain biological diversity in communities, yet few studies have investigated the combined effects of predators and resources on biodiversity in natural ecosystems. We fertilized nutrient limited plots and excluded insectivorous birds in a randomized block design, and examined the impacts on arthropods associated with the dominant tree in the Hawaiian Islands, Metrosideros polymorpha (Myrtaceae). After 33 mo, the species load (per foliage mass) of herbivores and carnivores increased with fertilization, but rarified richness (standardized to abundance) did not change. Fertilization depressed species richness of arboreal detritivores, and carnivore richness dropped in caged, unfertilized plots, both because of the increased dominance of common, introduced species with treatments. Herbivore species abundance distributions were more equitable than other trophic levels following treatments, and fertilization added specialized native species without changing relativized species richness. Overall, bird removal and nutrient addition treatments on arthropod richness acted largely independently, but with countervailing influences that obscured distinct top-down and bottom-up effects on different trophic levels. This study demonstrates that species composition, biological invasions, and the individuality of species traits may complicate efforts to predict the interactive effects of resources and predation on species diversity in food webs.Item The effects of foliar pubescence and nutrient enrichment on arthropod communities of Metrosideros polymorpha (Myrtaceae)(Ecological Entomology, 2005) Gruner, Daniel; Taylor, Andrew; Forkner, Rebecca1. Nutrient resource availability and host-plant foliar pubescence both influence arthropod food webs, but multifactor studies are needed to understand their interdependence and relative importance. Arthropods were sampled by clipping foliage from Metrosideros polymorpha (Myrtaceae) trees of pubescent, glabrous, and intermediate leaf forms on fertilised and unfertilised plots. 2. Fertilisation decreased leaf mass per area (LMA) but did not change the relative mass of pubescence within leaf morphological classes. 3. Fertilisation increased densities of individuals in four taxonomic orders, densities of individuals and species of all trophic levels, and the biomass of Collembola and Homoptera. Herbivore relative diversity (Shannon H0) also increased with fertilisation, but detritivore diversity declined due to increasing dominance of Salina celebensis (Schaeffer) (Collembola). 4. Detritivore density, driven again by S. celebensis, increased with decreasing leaf pubescence, but Heteroptera and Acari were most abundant on the intermediate pubescence class, and Psocoptera density and biomass increased with increasing pubescence. Trophic-level species density did not change with leaf morphological class, but relative diversity of all arthropods and of detritivores increased with increasing pubescence. 5. Both resource availability and leaf pubescence affected Metrosideros arthropod communities. However, the pervasive positive influence of fertilisation did not translate to compositional shifts, and there were no interactions with leaf morphological class. In contrast, the effects of leaf pubescence on arthropod density, biomass, and diversity were more restricted taxonomically, and nonparametric MANOVA and redundancy analyses demonstrated significant differentiation in community composition on the pubescent morphology.