Population and community consequences of cross-ecosystem resource subsidies

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Many ecosystems depend on cross-ecosystem resource subsidies, such as leaf litter or terrestrial invertebrates falling into streams, as key energy resources to sustain their productivity and biodiversity. This dependence is particularly clear for ecosystems that are detritus-based, but include many other resource types and ecosystem types. Resource subsidies cross many ecosystem boundaries, but are most obvious across the land-water interface. These resources are considered to be subsidies to the in situ production of basal resources, and are characterised in part by being donor-controlled since consumers cannot affect the rates of input of the subsidy resource, and therefore there is no, or negligible, direct feedback. It has been demonstrated that these resources are essential, and work on the topic within the past 5 years have allowed theory to advance to the stage of predictive, quantitative models. We have made progress on flows of these subsidy resources into and out of streams by quantifying the relative effects on consumer populations and their communities. We are now able to ask more specific questions about the quantitative form of the relationships between these subsidy resources and the consumers' dynamics. Moreover, we can ask how resource subsidies affect community processes, including questions about stability, community assembly, productivity, and invasibility.