We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Do predators have a role to play in wetland ecosystem functioning? An experimental study in New England salt marshes.
- Authors
Moore, Alexandria C.; Schmitz, Oswald J.
- Abstract
The historical ecological paradigm of wetland ecosystems emphasized the role of physical or "bottom‐up" factors in maintaining functions and services. However, recent studies have shown that the loss of predators in coastal salt marshes can lead to a significant reduction in wetland extent due to overgrazing of vegetation by herbivores. Such studies indicate that consumers or "top‐down" factors may play a much larger role in the maintenance of wetland ecosystems than was previously thought. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether altering top‐down control by manipulating the presence of predators can lead to measurable changes in salt marsh ecosystem properties. Between May and August of 2015 and 2016, we established exclosure and enclosure cages within three New England coastal wetland areas and manipulated the presence of green crab predators to assess how they and their fiddler and purple marsh crab prey affect changes in ecosystem properties. Predator presence was associated with changes in soil nitrogen and aboveground biomass at two of the three field sites, though the magnitude and direction of these effects varied from site to site. Further, path analysis results indicate that across field sites, a combination of bottom‐up and top‐down factors influenced changes in measured variables. These results challenge the growing consensus that consumers have strong effects, indicating instead that predator impacts may be highly context‐dependent.
- Subjects
NEW England; SALT marshes; SALT marsh ecology; ECOSYSTEMS; COASTAL wetlands; CARCINUS maenas; PREDATORY animals; PATH analysis (Statistics); WETLAND soils
- Publication
Ecology & Evolution (20457758), 2021, Vol 11, Issue 16, p10956
- ISSN
2045-7758
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/ece3.7880