Experimental test in lowland tropical forest shows top-down effects through four trophic levels

Ecology

Volumn 79, Issue 5, 1998, Pages 1678-1687

  Letourneau, D K ^a   Dyer, L A ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^b and Mass Communication   (United States)

Author keywords

Ant plant systems; Community ecology; Direct cf. indirect effects; Field experiment; Food web relationships; Herbivory; Mutualism; Piper cenocladum; Predation; Trophic cascades, terrestrial systems; Tropical rain forest

Indexed keywords

HERBIVORY; LIGHT AVAILABILITY; NUTRIENT AVAILABILITY; PREDATION; RAINFOREST; TROPHIC CASCADE;

CLERIDAE; COLEOPTERA; FORMICIDAE; HYMENOPTERA; PHEIDOLE BICORNIS; PIPER CENOCLADUM; TARSOBAENUS LETOURNEAUAE;

EID: 0031949046     PISSN: 00129658     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1890/0012-9658(1998)079[1678:ETILTF]2.0.CO;2     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. Altegrim, O. 1989. Exclusion of birds from bilberry stands: impact on insect larval density and damage lo the bilberry. Occologia 79:136-139.
2. Brett, M. T., and C. R. Goldman. 1997. Consumer versus resource control in freshwater pelagic food webs. Science 275:384-386.
3. Burger, W. 1971. Flora Costaricensis. Fieldiana Botany 35: 1-227.
4. Carpenter, S. C., T. M. Frost. J. F. Kitchell, T. K. Kratz, D. W. Schindler, J. Shearer, W. G. Sprules, M. J. Vanni, and A. P. Zimmerman. 1990. Patterns of primary production and herbivory in 25 North American lake ecosystems. Pages 67-96 in J. Cole. S. Findlay. and G. Lovett, editors. Comparative analyses of ecosystems: patterns, mechanisms, and theories. Springer-Verlag, New York, New York, USA.
5. Carpenter, S. R., and J. F. Kitchell. 1993. The trophic cascade in lakes. Cambridge University Press, New York, New York, USA.
6. Carter, P. E., and A. L. Rypstra. 1995. Top-down effects in soybean agroecosystems: spider density affects herbivore damage. Oikos 72:433-439.
7. Chase, J. M. 1996. Abiotic controls of trophic chains in a simple grassland food chain. Oikos 77:495-506.
8. Davidson, D. W., and B. L. Fisher. 1991. Symbiosis of ants with Cecropia as a function of the light regime. Pages 289-309 in C. R. Huxley and D. K. Cutler, editors. Ant-plant interactions. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
9. Dial, R., and J. Roughgarden. 1995. Experimental removal of insectivores from rain forest canopy: direct and indirect effects. Ecology 76:1821-1834.
10. Diehl, S. 1993. Relative consumer sizes and the strength of direct and indirect interactions in omnivorous feeding relationships. Oikos 68:151-157.
11. Elser, J. J., C. Luecke, M. T Brett, and C. R. Goldman. 1995. Effects of food web compensation after manipulation of rainbow trout in an oligotrophic lake. Ecology 76:52-69.
12. Field, J. G., K. R. Clarke, and R. M. Warwick. 1982. A practical strategy for analysing multispecies distribution patterns. Marine Ecology Progress Series 8:37-52.
13. Flecker, A. S., and C. R. Townsend. 1994. Community-wide consequences of trout introduction in New Zealand streams. Ecological Applications 4:798-807.
14. Floyd, T. 1996. Top-down impacts on creosotebush herbivores in a spatially and temporally complex environment. Ecology 77:1544-1555.
15. Fretwell, S. D. 1977. The regulation of plant communities by food chains exploiting them. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 20:169-185.
16. _ 1987. Food chain dynamics: the central theory of ecology? Oikos 50:291-301.
17. Gomez, J. M., and R. Zamora. 1994. Top-down effects in a tritrophic system: parasitoids enhance plant fitness. Ecology 75:1023-1030.
18. Greig, N. 1993. Predispersal seed predation on five Piper species in a tropical rainforest. Oecologia 93:412-420.
19. Hairston, N. G., Jr., and N. G. Hairston, Sr. 1993. Causeeffect relationships in energy flow, trophic structure, and interspecific interactions. American Naturalist 142:379-411.
20. Hairston, N. G., F. E. Smith, and L. B. Slobodkin. 1960. Community structure, population control, and competition. American Naturalist 94:421-424.
21. Hartshorn, G. S., and B. E. Hammel. 1994. Vegetation types and floristic patterns. Pages 73-89 in L. A. McDade. K. S. Bawa, H. A. Hespenheide, and G. S. Hartshorn, editors. La Selva. Ecology and natural history of a neotropical rainforest. University of Chicago Press. Chicago. Illinois. USA
22. Hartvigsen, G., D. A. Wait, and J. S. Coleman. 1995. Tritrophic interactions influenced by resource availability predator effects on plant performance depend on plant resources. Oikos 74:463-468.
23. Hawkins, B. A. 1992. Parasitoid-host food webs and donor control. Oikos 65:159-162.
24. Herendeen, R. A. 1995. A unified quantitative approach to trophic cascade and bottom-up:top-down hyplhoses. Journal of Theoretical Biology 176:13-26.
25. Hunter, M. D., and P. W. Price. 1992. Playing chutes and ladders: heterogeneity and the relative roles of bottom-up and top-down forces in natural communities. Ecology 73: 724-732.
26. Janzen, D. H., editor. 1983. Costa Rican natural history. University of Chicago Press. Chicago. Illinois. USA.
27. Krebs, C. J., S. Boutin, R. Boonstra, A. R. E. Sinclair, J. N. M. Smith, M. R. T. Dale. K. Martin, and R. Turkington 1995. Impact of food and predation on the snowshoe hare cycle. Science 269:1112-1115.
28. Lawton, J. H. 1989. Food webs. Pages 43-78 in L. M. Cher rett, editor. Ecological concepts. Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
29. Leibold, M. A. 1989. Resource edibility and the effects of predators and productivity on the outcome of trophic interactions. American Naturalist 134:922-949.
30. Letourneau, D. K. 1983. Passive aggression: an alternative hypothesis for the Piper-Pheidole association. Oecologia 60:122-126.
31. _ 1990. Code of ant-plant mutualism broken by parasite. Science 248:215-217.
32. _ 1991. Parasitism of ant-plant mutualisms and the novel case of Piper. Pages 390-396 in C. R. Huxley and D. K. Cutler, editors. Ant-plant interactions. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
33. _ 1998. Ants, stem-borers, and fungal pathogens: experimental tests of a fitness advantage in Piper ant-plants. Ecology 79:593-603.
34. Letourneau, D. K., and L. A. Dyer. 1998. Density patterns of Piper ant-plants and associated arthropods: top predator trophic cascades in a terrestrial system? Biotropica 30, in press.
35. Lodge, D. M., M. Kershner, J. Aloi, and A. P. Covich. 1994. Effects of an omnivorous crayfish (Oronected rusticus) on a freshwater littoral food web. Ecology 75:1265-1281.
36. Marquis, R. J. 1991. Herbivore fauna of Piper (Piperaceae) in a Costa Rican wet forest: diversity, specificity, and impact. Pages 179-208 in P. W. Price, T. M. Lewinsohn. G. W. Fernandes, and W. W. Benson, editors. Plant-animal interactions: evolutionary ecology in tropical and temperate regions. John Wiley & Sons, New York, New York, USA.
37. Marquis, R. J., and C. J. Whelan. 1994. Insectivorous birds increase growth of white oak through consumption of leafchewing insects. Ecology 75:2007-2014.
38. McDade, L. A., K. S. Bawa, H. A. Hespenheide, and G. S. Hartshorn, editors. 1994. La Selva. Ecology and natural history of a neotropical rainforest. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
39. McKey, D. 1988. Promising new directions in the study of ant-plant mutualisms. Pages 335-355 in W. Greuter and B. Zimmer, editors. Proceedings of the XIV International Botanical Congress, Berlin, Germany. Koeltz Scientific Books. Königstein. Germany.
40. McQueen, D. J., M. R. Johannes, J. R. Post, and T. J. Stewart. 1989. Bottom-up and top-down impacts on freshwater pelagic community structure. Ecological Monographs 59: 289-309.
41. Menge, B. A. 1992. Community regulation: under what conditions are bottom-up factors important on rocky shores? Ecology 73:755-765.
42. Moran, M. D., T. P. Rooney, and L. E. Hurd. 1996. Topdown cascade from a bitrophic predator in an old-field community. Ecology 77:2219-2227.
43. Navarrete, S. A., and B. A. Menge. 1996. Keystone predation and interaction strength: interactive effects of predators on their main prey. Ecological Monographs 66:409-429.
44. Oksanen, L., S. Fretwell, J. Arruda, and P. Niemela. 1981. Exploitation ecosystems in gradients of primary productivity. American Naturalist 118:240-261.
45. Pacala, S., and J. Roughgarden. 1984. Control of arthropod abundance by Anolis lizards on St. Eustatius (Neth. Antilles). Oecologia 64:160-162.
46. Paine, R. T. 1974. Intertidal community structure: experimental studies on the relationship between a dominant competitor and its principal predator. Oecologia 15:93-120.
47. Pimm, S. L. 1982. Food webs. Chapman & Hall, London, UK.
48. Polis, G. A., and D. R. Strong. 1996. Food web complexity and community dynamics. American Naturalist 147:813-846.
49. Polis, G. A., and K. O. Winemiller, editors. 1996. Food webs: integration of patterns and dynamics. Chapman & Hall, New York, New York, USA.
50. Power, M. E. 1990. Effect of fish in river food webs. Science 250:411-415.
51. _ 1992. Top-down and bottom-up forces in food webs: do plants have primacy? Ecology 73:733-746.
52. Risch, S., M. McClure, J. Vandermeer, and S. Waltz. 1977. Mutualism between three species of tropical Piper (Piperaceae) and their ant inhabitants. American Midland Naturalist 98:433-444.
53. Risch, S. J., and F. R. Rickson. 1981. Mutualism in which ants must be present before plants produce food bodies. Nature 291:149-150.
54. Rosenheim, J. A., L. R. Wilhoit, and C. A. Amer. 1993. Influence of intraguild predation among generalist insect predators on the suppression of an herbivore population. Oecologia 96:439-449.
55. SAS Institute. 1990. SAS user's guide: statistics. Release 6.11. SAS Institute, Cary, North Carolina, USA.
56. Schmitz, O. J. 1992. Exploitation in model food chains with mechanistic consumer-resource dynamics. Theoretical Population Biology 41:161-183.
57. _ 1993. Trophic exploitation in grassland food chains: simple models and a field experiment. Oecologia 93:327-335.
58. _ 1994. Resource edibility and trophic exploitation in an old-field food web. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 91:5364-5367.
59. Smith, F. E. 1969. Effects of enrichment in mathematical models. Pages 631-645 in Eutrophication: causes, consequences, correctives. National Academy of Sciences Press, Washington, D.C., USA.
60. Sollins, P., F. M. Sancho, R. Mata Ch., and R. L. Sanford, Jr. 1994. Soils and soil process research. Pages 34-53 in L. A. McDade, K. S. Bawa, H. A. Hespenheide, and G. S. Hartshorn, editors. La Selva. Ecology and natural history of a neotropical rainforest. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
61. Spiller, D. A., and T. W. Schoener. 1990. A terrestrial field experiment showing the impact of eliminating top predators in foliage damage. Nature 347:469-472.
62. Spiller, D. A., and T. W. Schoener. 1994. Effects of top and intermediate predators in a terrestrial food web. Ecology 75:182-196.
63. Strong, D. R. 1992. Are trophic cascades all wet? Differentiation and donor control in speciose ecosystems. Ecology 73:747-754.
64. Williams, S. L., and M. H. Ruckelshaus. 1993. Effects of nitrogen availability and herbivory on eelgrass (Zostera marina) and epiphytes. Ecology 74:904-918.
65. Yodzis, P. 1988. The indeterminacy of ecological interactions as perceived through perturbation experiments. Ecology 69:508-515.
66. _ 1996. Food webs and perturbation experiments: theory and practice. Pages 192-200 in G. A. Polis and K. O. Winemiller, editors. Food webs: integration of patterns and dynamics. Chapman & Hall, New York, New York, USA.