Hemprich-Bennett David R, Kemp Victoria A, Blackman Joshua, Struebig Matthew J, Lewis Owen T, Rossiter Stephen J, Clare Elizabeth L
School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Mol Ecol. 2021 Nov;30(22):5844-5857. doi: 10.1111/mec.16153. Epub 2021 Sep 8.
Habitat degradation is pervasive across the tropics and is particularly acute in Southeast Asia, with major implications for biodiversity. Much research has addressed the impact of degradation on species diversity; however, little is known about how ecological interactions are altered, including those that constitute important ecosystem functions such as consumption of herbivores. To examine how rainforest degradation alters trophic interaction networks, we applied DNA metabarcoding to construct interaction networks linking forest-dwelling insectivorous bat species and their prey, comparing old-growth forest and forest degraded by logging in Sabah, Borneo. Individual bats in logged rainforest consumed a lower richness of prey than those in old-growth forest. As a result, interaction networks in logged forests had a less nested structure. These network structures were associated with reduced network redundancy and thus increased vulnerability to perturbations in logged forests. Our results show how ecological interactions change between old-growth and logged forests, with potentially negative implications for ecosystem function and network stability.
栖息地退化在热带地区普遍存在，在东南亚尤为严重，对生物多样性有重大影响。许多研究探讨了退化对物种多样性的影响；然而，对于生态相互作用如何改变，包括那些构成重要生态系统功能（如食草动物的捕食）的相互作用，我们知之甚少。为了研究雨林退化如何改变营养相互作用网络，我们应用DNA宏条形码技术构建了连接栖息在森林中的食虫蝙蝠物种及其猎物的相互作用网络，比较了婆罗洲沙巴州的原始森林和因伐木而退化的森林。与原始森林中的蝙蝠相比，采伐雨林中的个体蝙蝠捕食的猎物丰富度较低。因此，采伐森林中的相互作用网络的嵌套结构较少。这些网络结构与网络冗余度降低有关，从而增加了采伐森林对干扰的脆弱性。我们的研究结果表明了原始森林和采伐森林之间生态相互作用是如何变化的，这可能对生态系统功能和网络稳定性产生负面影响。
