Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Entomology, Branisovska 1160/31, 370 05, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic.
Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Ceske Budejovice, Branisovska 1760, 370 05, Czech Republic.
Ecol Lett. 2020 Oct;23(10):1499-1510. doi: 10.1111/ele.13579. Epub 2020 Aug 18.
In arthropod community ecology, species richness studies tend to be prioritised over those investigating patterns of abundance. Consequently, the biotic and abiotic drivers of arboreal arthropod abundance are still relatively poorly known. In this cross-continental study, we employ a theoretical framework in order to examine patterns of covariance among herbivorous and predatory arthropod guilds. Leaf-chewing and leaf-mining herbivores, and predatory ants and spiders, were censused on > 1000 trees in nine 0.1 ha forest plots. After controlling for tree size and season, we found no negative pairwise correlations between guild abundances per plot, suggestive of weak signals of both inter-guild competition and top-down regulation of herbivores by predators. Inter-guild interaction strengths did not vary with mean annual temperature, thus opposing the hypothesis that biotic interactions intensify towards the equator. We find evidence for the bottom-up limitation of arthropod abundances via resources and abiotic factors, rather than for competition and predation.
在节肢动物群落生态学中，物种丰富度研究往往优先于丰度模式研究。因此，树木节肢动物丰度的生物和非生物驱动因素仍然知之甚少。在这项跨大陆的研究中，我们采用了一个理论框架来检验食草性和捕食性节肢动物类群之间协变的模式。在九个 0.1 公顷的森林样地中，我们对 >1000 棵树上的食叶性和潜叶性食草动物以及捕食性蚂蚁和蜘蛛进行了普查。在控制了树的大小和季节之后，我们发现每个样地中各虫群丰度之间没有负的成对相关性，这表明种间竞争和捕食者对食草动物的自上而下调节的信号很弱。种间相互作用强度与年平均温度无关，因此反对了生物相互作用在接近赤道的地方加剧的假设。我们发现了通过资源和非生物因素对节肢动物丰度产生的底部限制的证据，而不是竞争和捕食。
