Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA.
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2022 Aug;25(8):1827-1838. doi: 10.1111/ele.14064. Epub 2022 Jun 29.
Understanding the role of animal behaviour in linking individuals to ecosystems is central to advancing knowledge surrounding community structure, stability and transition dynamics. Using 22 years of long-term subtidal monitoring, we show that an abrupt outbreak of purple sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus), which occurred in 2014 in southern Monterey Bay, California, USA, was primarily driven by a behavioural shift, not by a demographic response (i.e. survival or recruitment). We then tracked the foraging behaviour of sea urchins for 3 years following the 2014 outbreak and found that behaviour is strongly associated with patch state (forest or barren) transition dynamics. Finally, in 2019, we observed a remarkable recovery of kelp forests at a deep rocky reef. We show that this recovery was associated with sea urchin movement from the deep reef to shallow water. These results demonstrate how changes in grazer behaviour can facilitate patch dynamics and dramatically restructure communities and ecosystems.
了解动物行为在将个体与生态系统联系起来方面的作用，对于推进有关群落结构、稳定性和过渡动态的知识至关重要。利用 22 年的长期潮间带监测数据，我们表明，2014 年在美国加利福尼亚州蒙特雷湾南部发生的紫海胆（Strongylocentrotus purpuratus）的突然爆发主要是由行为转变驱动的，而不是由生存或繁殖等种群动态响应所驱动。然后，我们在 2014 年爆发后的 3 年内跟踪了海胆的觅食行为，发现行为与斑块状态（森林或贫瘠）的转变动态密切相关。最后，在 2019 年，我们在一个深岩礁上观察到大型褐藻林的显著恢复。我们表明，这种恢复与海胆从深礁向浅水区的移动有关。这些结果表明，食草动物行为的变化如何促进斑块动态，并显著重构群落和生态系统。
