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Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web
A number of studies indicate that tropical arthropods should be particularly vulnerable to climate warming. If these predictions are realized, climate warming may have a more profound impact on the functioning and diversity of tropical forests than currently anticipated. Although arthropods comprise...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
National Academy of Sciences
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6217376/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30322922 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1722477115 |
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author | Lister, Bradford C. Garcia, Andres |
author_facet | Lister, Bradford C. Garcia, Andres |
author_sort | Lister, Bradford C. |
collection | PubMed |
description | A number of studies indicate that tropical arthropods should be particularly vulnerable to climate warming. If these predictions are realized, climate warming may have a more profound impact on the functioning and diversity of tropical forests than currently anticipated. Although arthropods comprise over two-thirds of terrestrial species, information on their abundance and extinction rates in tropical habitats is severely limited. Here we analyze data on arthropod and insectivore abundances taken between 1976 and 2012 at two midelevation habitats in Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest. During this time, mean maximum temperatures have risen by 2.0 °C. Using the same study area and methods employed by Lister in the 1970s, we discovered that the dry weight biomass of arthropods captured in sweep samples had declined 4 to 8 times, and 30 to 60 times in sticky traps. Analysis of long-term data on canopy arthropods and walking sticks taken as part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research program revealed sustained declines in abundance over two decades, as well as negative regressions of abundance on mean maximum temperatures. We also document parallel decreases in Luquillo’s insectivorous lizards, frogs, and birds. While El Niño/Southern Oscillation influences the abundance of forest arthropods, climate warming is the major driver of reductions in arthropod abundance, indirectly precipitating a bottom-up trophic cascade and consequent collapse of the forest food web. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6217376 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | National Academy of Sciences |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-62173762018-11-06 Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web Lister, Bradford C. Garcia, Andres Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A PNAS Plus A number of studies indicate that tropical arthropods should be particularly vulnerable to climate warming. If these predictions are realized, climate warming may have a more profound impact on the functioning and diversity of tropical forests than currently anticipated. Although arthropods comprise over two-thirds of terrestrial species, information on their abundance and extinction rates in tropical habitats is severely limited. Here we analyze data on arthropod and insectivore abundances taken between 1976 and 2012 at two midelevation habitats in Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest. During this time, mean maximum temperatures have risen by 2.0 °C. Using the same study area and methods employed by Lister in the 1970s, we discovered that the dry weight biomass of arthropods captured in sweep samples had declined 4 to 8 times, and 30 to 60 times in sticky traps. Analysis of long-term data on canopy arthropods and walking sticks taken as part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research program revealed sustained declines in abundance over two decades, as well as negative regressions of abundance on mean maximum temperatures. We also document parallel decreases in Luquillo’s insectivorous lizards, frogs, and birds. While El Niño/Southern Oscillation influences the abundance of forest arthropods, climate warming is the major driver of reductions in arthropod abundance, indirectly precipitating a bottom-up trophic cascade and consequent collapse of the forest food web. National Academy of Sciences 2018-10-30 2018-10-15 /pmc/articles/PMC6217376/ /pubmed/30322922 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1722477115 Text en Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | PNAS Plus Lister, Bradford C. Garcia, Andres Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web |
title | Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web |
title_full | Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web |
title_fullStr | Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web |
title_full_unstemmed | Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web |
title_short | Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web |
title_sort | climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web |
topic | PNAS Plus |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6217376/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30322922 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1722477115 |
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