Individual- and population-level responses of a keystone predator to geographic variation in prey

Ecology
Sergio A Navarrete, Tatiana Manzur

Abstract

Investigating how food supply regulates the behavior and population structure of predators remains a central focus of population and community ecology. These responses will determine the strength of bottom-up processes through the food web, which can potentially lead to coupled top-down regulation of local communities. However, characterizing the bottom-up effects of prey is difficult in the case of generalist predators and particularly with predators that have large dispersal scales, attributes that characterize most marine top predators. Here we use long-term data on mussel, barnacle, limpet, and other adult prey abundance and recruitment at sites spread over 970 km to investigate individual- and population-level responses of the keystone intertidal sunstar Heliaster helianthus on the coast of Chile. Our results show that this generalist predator responds to changes in the supply of an apparently preferred prey, the competitively dominant mussel Perumytilus purpuratus. Individual-level parameters (diet composition, per capita prey consumption, predator size) positively responded to increased mussel abundance and recruitment, whereas population-level parameters (density, biomass, size structure) did not respond to bottom-up pr...Continue Reading

References

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Sep 27, 2003·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·B A MengeM S Webster
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Citations

Oct 13, 2010·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Andrés U CaroJuan Carlos Castilla
Jan 18, 2013·PloS One·Nelson ValdiviaBernardo R Broitman
Dec 1, 2020·The Science of the Total Environment·Carlota MuñizNicolas Weidberg
Feb 28, 2021·The Science of the Total Environment·Patricio H ManríquezKatherina Brokordt

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