Turning up the heat: temperature influences the relative importance of top-down and bottom-up effects.

Understanding how communities respond to changes in temperature is a major challenge for community ecology. Temperature influences the relative degree to which top-down and bottom-up forces structure ecological communities. In greenhouse experiments using the aquatic community found in pitcher plants (Sarracenia purpurea), I tested how temperature affected the relative importance of top-down (mosquito predation) and bottom-up (ant carcasses) forces on protozoa and bacteria populations. While bottom-up effects did not vary consistently with temperature, the top-down effects of predators on protozoa increased at higher temperatures. These results suggest that temperature could change the relative importance of top-down...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation, Journal Citation; Tags: Ecology, Wyeomyia smithii, food web, laboratory experiment, predation, All tags... temperature, top-down vs. bottom-up forces, Fewer tags