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Medientyp:
E-Artikel
Titel:
Trophic Consequences of a Positive Plant Interaction
Beteiligte:
Hacker, Sally D.;
Bertness, Mark D.
Erschienen:
University of Chicago Press, 1996
Erschienen in:The American Naturalist
Sprache:
Englisch
ISSN:
0003-0147;
1537-5323
Entstehung:
Anmerkungen:
Beschreibung:
<p>Positive interactions (mutualisms and commensalisms) are becoming more widely known as important processes in natural and agricultural communities. They can have strong and direct effects on associated species by creating hospitable environments for organisms lacking the morphological and/or physiological ability to cope without neighbors. Despite the recent recognition of the importance of positive interactions, we know little about how they influence the population dynamics of higher trophic levels. In this study, we have coupled our previous research on positive plant interactions among salt marsh plants with experiments on higher trophic levels to investigate the relative contribution of positive interactions to herbivore and predator population dynamics in a southern New England salt marsh. We experimentally manipulate salt marsh host plants with and without the physical buffering effects of plant neighbors to investigate the colonization dynamics and population growth rates of aphid herbivores. We show that, without plant neighbors, aphid colonization increases on host plants but that negative population growth rates ensure local extinction at all levels of the food chain. Our study demonstrates that positive interactions between neighboring plants can have strong community-wide repercussions and can ultimately determine the integrity of interactions at higher trophic levels.</p>