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Opposing deer and caterpillar foraging preferences may prevent reductions in songbird prey biomass in historically overbrowsed forests

Overbrowsing by ungulates decimates plant populations and reduces diversity in a variety of ecosystems, but the mechanisms by which changes to plant community composition influence other trophic levels are poorly understood. In addition to removal of avian nesting habitat, browsing is hypothesized t...

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Autores principales: Godfrey, R. Keating, Yerger, Ellen H., Nuttle, Timothy J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5756885/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29321893
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.3497
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author Godfrey, R. Keating
Yerger, Ellen H.
Nuttle, Timothy J.
author_facet Godfrey, R. Keating
Yerger, Ellen H.
Nuttle, Timothy J.
author_sort Godfrey, R. Keating
collection PubMed
description Overbrowsing by ungulates decimates plant populations and reduces diversity in a variety of ecosystems, but the mechanisms by which changes to plant community composition influence other trophic levels are poorly understood. In addition to removal of avian nesting habitat, browsing is hypothesized to reduce bird density and diversity through reduction of insect prey on browse‐tolerant hosts left behind by deer. In this study, we excluded birds from branches of six tree species to quantify differences in songbird prey removal across trees that vary in deer browse preference. Early in the breeding season, birds preyed on caterpillars at levels proportional to their abundance on each host. Combining these data with tree species composition data from stands exposed to experimentally controlled deer densities over 30 years ago, we tested whether overbrowsing by white‐tailed deer reduces prey biomass long after deer densities are reduced. Our analysis predicts total prey availability in the canopy of regenerating forests is fairly robust to historic exposure to high deer densities, though distribution of prey available from host species changes dramatically. This predicted compensatory effect was unexpected and is driven by high prey abundance on a single host tree species avoided by browsing deer, Prunus serotina. Thus, while we confirm that prey abundance on host trees can act as a reliable predictor for relative prey availability, this study shows that quantifying prey abundance across host trees is essential to understanding how changes in tree species composition interact with ungulate browse preference to determine prey availability for songbirds.
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spelling pubmed-57568852018-01-10 Opposing deer and caterpillar foraging preferences may prevent reductions in songbird prey biomass in historically overbrowsed forests Godfrey, R. Keating Yerger, Ellen H. Nuttle, Timothy J. Ecol Evol Original Research Overbrowsing by ungulates decimates plant populations and reduces diversity in a variety of ecosystems, but the mechanisms by which changes to plant community composition influence other trophic levels are poorly understood. In addition to removal of avian nesting habitat, browsing is hypothesized to reduce bird density and diversity through reduction of insect prey on browse‐tolerant hosts left behind by deer. In this study, we excluded birds from branches of six tree species to quantify differences in songbird prey removal across trees that vary in deer browse preference. Early in the breeding season, birds preyed on caterpillars at levels proportional to their abundance on each host. Combining these data with tree species composition data from stands exposed to experimentally controlled deer densities over 30 years ago, we tested whether overbrowsing by white‐tailed deer reduces prey biomass long after deer densities are reduced. Our analysis predicts total prey availability in the canopy of regenerating forests is fairly robust to historic exposure to high deer densities, though distribution of prey available from host species changes dramatically. This predicted compensatory effect was unexpected and is driven by high prey abundance on a single host tree species avoided by browsing deer, Prunus serotina. Thus, while we confirm that prey abundance on host trees can act as a reliable predictor for relative prey availability, this study shows that quantifying prey abundance across host trees is essential to understanding how changes in tree species composition interact with ungulate browse preference to determine prey availability for songbirds. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2017-12-02 /pmc/articles/PMC5756885/ /pubmed/29321893 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.3497 Text en © 2017 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Godfrey, R. Keating
Yerger, Ellen H.
Nuttle, Timothy J.
Opposing deer and caterpillar foraging preferences may prevent reductions in songbird prey biomass in historically overbrowsed forests
title Opposing deer and caterpillar foraging preferences may prevent reductions in songbird prey biomass in historically overbrowsed forests
title_full Opposing deer and caterpillar foraging preferences may prevent reductions in songbird prey biomass in historically overbrowsed forests
title_fullStr Opposing deer and caterpillar foraging preferences may prevent reductions in songbird prey biomass in historically overbrowsed forests
title_full_unstemmed Opposing deer and caterpillar foraging preferences may prevent reductions in songbird prey biomass in historically overbrowsed forests
title_short Opposing deer and caterpillar foraging preferences may prevent reductions in songbird prey biomass in historically overbrowsed forests
title_sort opposing deer and caterpillar foraging preferences may prevent reductions in songbird prey biomass in historically overbrowsed forests
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5756885/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29321893
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.3497
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