Project Details
Projekt
Consumers and Functions
Subject Area
Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems
Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems
Term
since 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 422440326
Consumers drive plant community assembly and diversity and provide ecosystem functions that transfer matter and energy (plant carbon) from primary producers (plants) to higher trophic levels. In previous work on plant diversity-consumer relationships in the Jena Experiment, we showed that plant diversity impacts higher trophic levels. However, we also documented large variability in properties of the consumer communities (species richness, abundance, and functional composition) and levels of herbivory (consumption of living plants or plant parts) and predation (the killing and consumption of live prey animals by higher trophic level consumers) within and between years. This variability occurs in the average values and the effects of plant diversity on these values. While temporal dynamics have been investigated in detail for plant productivity, there are only very few studies investigating the temporal changes in the relationship between plant diversity and consumer communities and related functions. Thus, understanding of these relationships' temporal dynamics is still limited. Yet, due to the relevance of invertebrates in grassland ecosystems and ongoing climatic changes, it is essential to investigate the drivers of stability (inverse of temporal variability) and to identify buffering mechanisms (e.g. plant diversity). Using a combination of statistical analyses of long-term data series and targeted microcosm experiments, SP10 'Consumers and Functions' aims to understand (1) what causes temporal variability in consumer communities and associated functions and (2) whether plant diversity has a stabilising effect on properties of the invertebrate consumer community (species richness, abundance, biomass) and associated ecosystem functions (herbivory and predation). Specifically, we want to investigate if high plant diversity leads to less temporal variation in consumer communities and thus contributes to a more stable provisioning of ecosystem functions under extreme environmental conditions, particularly under drought (WP1). We will also investigate which dynamics and properties of the consumer communities underlie these effects (WP2 and 3). It is critical to understand the temporal dynamics in consumer communities because these can have profound implications for the stability and functioning of entire food webs. We will quantify two essential functions (herbivory and predation) together with the investigation of the consumer communities. Such a holistic approach promises novel insights into the dynamics of the functioning of consumer and plant communities.
DFG Programme
Research Units
