Section of Amphibians and Reptiles, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America.
South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Marine Resources Research Institute, Charleston, SC, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 May 31;19(5):e0303886. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0303886. eCollection 2024.
The relationship between primary productivity and diversity has been demonstrated across taxa and spatial scales, but for organisms with biphasic life cycles, little research has examined whether productivity of larval and adult environments influence each life stage independently, or whether productivity of one life stage's environment outweighs the influence of the other. Experimental work demonstrates that tadpoles of stream-breeding anurans can exhibit a top-down influence on aquatic primary productivity (APP), but few studies have sought evidence of a bottom-up influence of primary productivity on anuran abundance, species richness and community composition, as seen in other organisms. We examined aquatic and terrestrial primary productivity in two forest types in Borneo, along with amphibian abundance, species richness, and community composition at larval and adult stages, to determine whether there is evidence for a bottom-up influence of APP on tadpole abundance and species richness across streams, and the relative importance of aquatic and terrestrial primary productivity on larval and adult phases of anurans. We predicted that adult richness, abundance, and community composition would be influenced by terrestrial primary productivity, but that tadpole richness, abundance, and community composition would be influenced by APP. Contrary to expectations, we did not find evidence that primary productivity, or variation thereof, predicts anuran richness at larval or adult stages. Further, no measure of primary productivity or its variation was a significant predictor of adult abundance, or of adult or tadpole community composition. For tadpoles, we found that in areas with low terrestrial primary productivity, abundance was positively related to APP, but in areas with high terrestrial primary productivity, abundance was negatively related to APP, suggesting a bottom-up influence of primary productivity on abundance in secondary forest, and a top-down influence of tadpoles on primary productivity in primary forest. Additional data are needed to better understand the ecological interactions between terrestrial primary productivity, aquatic primary productivity, and tadpole abundance.
初级生产力与多样性的关系在不同分类群和空间尺度上都得到了证实，但对于具有两阶段生活周期的生物，很少有研究检查幼虫和成虫环境的生产力是否独立地影响每个生命阶段，或者一个生命阶段的环境生产力是否超过另一个生命阶段的影响。实验工作表明，溪流繁殖的两栖动物的蝌蚪可以对水生初级生产力（APP）产生自上而下的影响，但很少有研究试图寻找初级生产力对两栖动物丰度、物种丰富度和群落组成的自下而上影响的证据，而在其他生物中则可以看到这种影响。我们在婆罗洲的两种森林类型中检查了水生和陆地初级生产力，以及幼虫和成虫阶段的两栖动物丰度、物种丰富度和群落组成，以确定 APP 是否对整个溪流的蝌蚪丰度和物种丰富度有自下而上的影响，以及水生和陆地初级生产力对两栖动物幼虫和成虫阶段的相对重要性。我们预测，成年丰富度、丰度和群落组成将受到陆地初级生产力的影响，但幼虫丰富度、丰度和群落组成将受到 APP 的影响。与预期相反，我们没有发现证据表明初级生产力或其变化可以预测幼虫或成虫阶段的两栖动物丰富度。此外，初级生产力或其变化的任何衡量标准都不是成年丰度或成年或蝌蚪群落组成的重要预测指标。对于蝌蚪，我们发现，在陆地初级生产力低的地区，丰度与 APP 呈正相关，但在陆地初级生产力高的地区，丰度与 APP 呈负相关，这表明在次生林中初级生产力对丰度有自下而上的影响，而在原生林中蝌蚪对初级生产力有自上而下的影响。需要更多的数据来更好地理解陆地初级生产力、水生初级生产力和蝌蚪丰度之间的生态相互作用。
