The Influence of Plant Functional Traits on Multi-trophic Interactions: An Experimental Community Restoration Approach in a Hawaiian Lowland Wet Forest

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An understanding of the direct and indirect links between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning is still a large unknown in ecology. This lack of knowledge impedes restoration of degraded lands, because the establishment of a complex food web is rarely planned for in restoration. It is often assumed that "if you build it, they will come"; in other words, if a certain plant community structure is achieved, the assumption is that animal colonization will follow. Yet, there is a limited understanding of cause and effect; if certain plant species are chosen for restoration, how is animal presence and abundance affected? The proposed field experiment will address if functional trait-based restoration influences the species and functional diversity of animal communities. Plant species differ in many tangible ways relating to resource use, growth, and reproduction. Intentionally choosing species with specific traits may help direct and engineer the species of animals attracted to restored sites, which provides land managers with tools to guide degraded sites towards healthier ecosystem states. This research will offer student and technician research training opportunities, public outreach, and expand development of a module for middle school students at a local Hawaiian language immersion charter school. The restoration experiment will be conducted in a Hawaiian lowland wet forest, which consists of a reference (invaded forest) and experimental treatments in which native plants were left in situ, all non-native plant species were cleared, and four different mixtures of ten species were planted. The four different mixtures of ten species vary by functional traits, as well as their overlap in the restored community. This research will test the hypothesis that animal diversity of the litter arthropod community will be higher and interactions among species will be more complex in terms of connectance, interaction diversity, and interaction specialization in the treatments where the plant species have a greater diversity in their functional trait values. These invaded forests are living experiments in how novel ecosystems assemble new community members, with environmental conditions ideal for examining multi-trophic interactions. Stable isotope analyses, network analyses, and statistical modeling will provide indices of different aspects of animal assemblage and interaction complexity in a relatively low diversity tropical environment. In turn, ecosystem services value estimation will provide additional context for treatment comparisons and sustainable ecosystem management.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.