Article
Ecology
Alice E. L. Walker, Mark P. Robertson, Paul Eggleton, Katherine Bunney, Candice Lamb, Adam M. Fisher, Catherine L. Parr
Summary: Understanding the factors controlling decomposition is crucial for predicting changes in the carbon cycle with global change. Ants exert significant top-down control on decomposition by preying on termites, leading to increased termite-mediated decomposition at a large scale.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Brady P. Parlato, Cy L. Mott
Summary: Consumptive effects (CEs) of predation have been extensively studied, but nonconsumptive effects (NCEs) on prey have received limited attention. This study focused on wood frog tadpoles and found that over 70% of tadpoles engaged in omnivory, primarily on zooplankton. Tadpoles exhibited CEs and NCEs on invertebrate communities, with stronger effects on zooplankton than macroinvertebrates. The NCEs likely involved production of predatory chemical cues that influenced invertebrate behavior, abundance, and community composition.
Article
Ecology
Anne Kempel, Eric Allan, Martin M. Gossner, Malte Jochum, James B. Grace, David A. Wardle
Summary: In the absence of disturbance, ecosystems often undergo decline or retrogression, resulting in reductions in primary productivity, plant biomass, nutrient cycling and foliar quality. However, the effects of ecosystem retrogression on higher trophic levels, such as herbivores and predators, are not well understood. This study shows that the availability of nutrients strongly influences invertebrate herbivore biomass when predator abundance is low, but shifts to top-down control when predators are abundant. These findings highlight the importance of considering nutrient-independent variation in predator abundance when studying trophic cascades and herbivore effects on plant communities.
Article
Soil Science
Xuehua Wang, Zhongmin Dai, Jiahui Lin, Haochun Zhao, Haodan Yu, Bin Ma, Lingfei Hu, Jiachun Shi, Xiaoyun Chen, Manqiang Liu, Xin Ke, Yijun Yu, Randy A. Dahlgren, Jianming Xu
Summary: The soil microbial food web is crucial for soil health, nutrient cycling, and agricultural productivity. However, the effects of heavy metal contamination on the trophic-level interactions within this food web in agricultural soils, which are globally contaminated, have not been well-studied. This study examined the interactions among predators, preys, and competitors under different metal contamination levels and found that metal contamination altered the growth of different prey groups, resulting in changes in the diversity and abundance of consumers and their interactions. Lab experiments confirmed these findings, indicating the collapse of trophic-level interactions due to heavy metal contamination.
SOIL BIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Eugeniy Yakovis, Anna Artemieva
Summary: The study revealed a multilevel facilitation cascade between bivalves and barnacles in the White Sea shallow subtidal. Predation from the whelk had a significant impact on barnacles, while mesopredators such as crabs and shrimp reduced whelk recruitment.
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Elaine M. Brice, Eric J. Larsen, Daniel R. MacNulty
Summary: Understanding trophic cascades in terrestrial wildlife communities is challenging due to the difficulty in properly sampling these systems. A tradition of non-random sampling in Yellowstone National Park has skewed the understanding of trophic cascades involving wolf recovery and elk behavior. Long-term data revealed that random sampling is essential for accurately describing trophic cascades in terrestrial wildlife systems.
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Ying Pan, Yaoyue Long, Jin Hui, Weiyi Xiao, Jiang Yin, Ya Li, Dan Liu, Qingdong Tian, Liqiang Chen
Summary: This study found that microplastics can affect the trophic cascade strength of plankton ecosystems via behavior-mediated indirect interactions, thereby reducing their stability and persistence.
JOURNAL OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Martin T. Lockett, Rebecca Rasmussen, Stefan K. Arndt, Gareth R. Hopkins, Theresa M. Jones
Summary: Artificial light at night has direct and indirect effects on woody plants and their colonising invertebrates, potentially disrupting biological function and ecological communities, with cascading effects on higher trophic levels.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
(2022)
Review
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Linlin Shi, Boyang Wang, Siyu Lu
Summary: Graphene quantum dots (GQDs), a new class of carbonaceous form, have attracted significant attention due to their exceptional electronic, fluorescent, photoluminescent, chemiluminescent, and electrochemiluminescent properties. Nanomaterials based on GQDs have been widely utilized in various fields, and the synthetic strategies for GQDs have been summarized. However, the stepwise total synthesis tactics at the atomic-structure level have not been adequately addressed. This review provides a comprehensive summary of total synthetic strategies of GQDs using a skeleton growth approach and proposes a confident guideline for the accurate synthesis of GQD structures.
Article
Ecology
Robert E. Clark, David W. Crowder
Summary: Research shows that vector-borne plant pathogens can modify interactions within both bottom-up and top-down food webs. PEMV can alter the plant-herbivore relationships, reducing vector performance on certain plants but also increasing susceptibility to predators.
Article
Fisheries
Jacob E. Lerner, Christian Marchese, Brian P. Hunt
Summary: In coastal marine food webs, food chain length and trophic level distribution are crucial elements of ecosystem-based management. This study evaluates the hypothesis that high primary production leads to lower trophic levels and shorter food chain length in British Columbia coast. The results support this hypothesis, showing a significant inverse relationship between primary production and food chain length as well as trophic level.
ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Engineering, Marine
Jeffrey W. Short, Christine M. Voss, Maria L. Vozzo, Vincent Guillory, Harold J. Geiger, James C. Haney, Charles H. Peterson
Summary: The 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout led to an unprecedented recruitment of Gulf menhaden, resulting in increased competition among the fish due to the loss of their predator species. This led to poor physiological conditions and low lipid content, particularly in areas with high recruitment. Trophodynamic comparisons showed the dominant role of Gulf menhaden in the food web, with implications of a trophic cascade and negative impacts on predators. Incorporating such cascading effects in damage assessment models can improve predictions and recovery strategies for major oil spills.
JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
(2021)
Review
Marine & Freshwater Biology
D. G. George
Summary: This review uses examples from long-term studies in the English Lakes to highlight the limitations of top-down control in planktonic systems, particularly at the base of the food chain where there are significant differences in potential growth rates between phytoplankton and zooplankton. The importance of time in trophic interactions and the disruption of established patterns by changes in mixing intensity are demonstrated through the examples provided.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Sean Hacker Teper, Christopher C. Parrish, Patrick Gagnon
Summary: By studying a rhodolith bed in southeastern Newfoundland, Canada, we found that the species composition and rhodolith morphology of the bed indicated high temporal stability. Our nutritional analysis showed that most species fed on a shared resource, diatoms, and that macroalgal detritus is an important food source within rhodolith communities. Stable isotope analysis revealed the simultaneous operation of bottom-up forcing and benthic-pelagic coupling in subarctic rhodolith beds.
FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Agronomy
Rodrigo Martinez-Sastre, Rocio Pena, Alejandro Gonzalez-Ibanez, Daniel Garcia, Marcos Minarro
Summary: A study in 26 low-input cider apple orchards in northern Spain found that codling moth abundance was positively correlated with the cover of apple plantations and production, indicating bottom-up pest regulation; apple damage decreased with apple production, suggesting codling moth satiation; the number of parasitized larvae was positively related to parasitoid richness and codling moth abundance, implying simultaneous top-down and bottom-up effects between parasitoids and pests.
Article
Ecology
Hiroto Enari, Shinsuke Koike, Haruka S. Enari, Yoshikazu Seki, Kei Okuda, Yuuji Kodera
ACTA OECOLOGICA-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2018)
Article
Zoology
Yoshikazu Seki, Masaaki Koganezawa
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Taiki Uno, Takuya Kato, Yoshikazu Seki, Eiichi Kawakami, Shin-ichi Hayama
JOURNAL OF REPRODUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
(2014)
Article
Zoology
Yoshikazu Seki, Kei Okuda, Masaaki Koganezawa
Article
Ecology
Yoshikazu Seki, Masafumi Ito, Kei Okuda, Masaaki Koganezawa
Summary: Recent studies have shown that an increase in sika deer population affects the abundance of rodents and invertebrates, leading to changes in the red fox diet. Red foxes demonstrate dietary plasticity in response to changes in prey availability due to habitat modifications caused by deer grazing.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Zoology
Yoshikazu Seki, Taisei Sato
Summary: The distribution of invasive alien Pallas's squirrels in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan has expanded southeast towards continuous forests. Recent sightings of squirrels in residential areas with small green spaces indicate the ability of squirrels to establish populations in fragmented habitats. Squirrels in this study selected areas near evergreen and deciduous woods, while avoiding residential areas, suggesting a potential use of small wooded areas as stepping stones for range expansion.
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Yoshikazu Seki, Shin-ichi Hayama
Summary: The study found that Japanese serows and sika deer exhibit spatial and temporal partitioning in habitat selection and activity patterns, reducing encounter rates and enabling their coexistence. However, as sika deer density increases, the overlap between the two species may also increase, potentially impacting the Japanese serows.