Organizational Complexity in Ecological Foodwebs: Experimental Analysis of Interaction Strength in an Old-Field System

生态食物网中的组织复杂性：旧场系统中相互作用强度的实验分析

• 批准号: 9508604
• 负责人: Oswald Schmitz
• 金额: $ 5.47万
• 依托单位: Yale University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1995
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1995-08-01 至 1997-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9508604&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Organizational; Complexity; Ecological; Foodwebs; Experimental

9508604 Schmitz This study will evaluate the importance of direct and indirect species interactions in structuring a terrestrial old-field food web. Insight into species interactions will be obtained through detailed work in natural field settings involving plants, insect herbivores (grasshoppers, katydids, and beetles) and carnivores (hunting spiders). The study will test a key hypothesis in food-web ecology that the strength of effects of one species on another will depend on species composition of the food web and the direct and indirect ways the two species interact through their linkages will other species in the system. Field experiments will be conducted to quantify precisely and reliably the kinds of species interactions, their strengths and the network of pathways through which the effects of species interactions pass. Experimental food webs with varying numbers of species of old-field herbs and grasses, insect herbivores and spiders will be assembled in enclosure cages in the field to quantify the effect of increasing species diversity on species interactions in a food web. The experiments will also evaluate whether or not food-web dynamics become altered if food-web structure is reduced through species removals. This research will provide important information on the way species in natural old-field systems become linked together and it will offer insight into what happens when these linkages are disrupted by natural or human disturbances. This information is crucial for the conservation of biological diversity. Many ecologists have suggested that a reduction in biodiversity that disrupts the network of species linkages can have serious impacts on the dynamics of natural food webs.

9508604施密茨这项研究将评估物种直接和间接相互作用在构建陆地老田食物网中的重要性。对物种相互作用的洞察将通过在涉及植物、昆虫食草动物(蝗虫、蜥蜴和甲虫)和食肉动物(捕猎蜘蛛)的自然野外环境中的详细工作来获得。这项研究将检验食物网生态学中的一个关键假说，即一个物种对另一个物种的影响强度将取决于食物网的物种组成，以及这两个物种通过它们的联系与系统中的其他物种相互作用的直接和间接方式。将进行实地实验，以准确和可靠地量化物种相互作用的种类、它们的强度和物种相互作用所通过的路径网络。带有不同种类的老田草本植物和草、昆虫食草动物和蜘蛛的实验食物网将被聚集在田间的围栏中，以量化物种多样性增加对食物网中物种相互作用的影响。这些实验还将评估如果通过物种移除而减少食物网的结构，食物网的动态是否会改变。这项研究将提供有关自然旧领域系统中物种如何联系在一起的重要信息，并将深入了解当这些联系被自然或人类干扰破坏时会发生什么。这些信息对保护生物多样性至关重要。许多生态学家提出，生物多样性的减少扰乱了物种联系的网络，可能会对自然食物网的动态产生严重影响。