TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wojcik, Laurie Anne
A1  - Ceulemans, Ruben
A1  - Gaedke, Ursula
T1  - Functional diversity buffers the effects of a pulse perturbation on the dynamics of tritrophic food webs
JF  - Ecology and Evolution
N2  - Biodiversity decline causes a loss of functional diversity, which threatens ecosystems through a dangerous feedback loop: This loss may hamper ecosystems’ ability to buffer environmental changes, leading to further biodiversity losses. In this context, the increasing frequency of human-induced excessive loading of nutrients causes major problems in aquatic systems. Previous studies investigating how functional diversity influences the response of food webs to disturbances have mainly considered systems with at most two functionally diverse trophic levels. We investigated the effects of functional diversity on the robustness, that is, resistance, resilience, and elasticity, using a tritrophic—and thus more realistic—plankton food web model. We compared a non-adaptive food chain with no diversity within the individual trophic levels to a more diverse food web with three adaptive trophic levels. The species fitness differences were balanced through trade-offs between defense/growth rate for prey and selectivity/half-saturation constant for predators. We showed that the resistance, resilience, and elasticity of tritrophic food webs decreased with larger perturbation sizes and depended on the state of the system when the perturbation occurred. Importantly, we found that a more diverse food web was generally more resistant and resilient but its elasticity was context-dependent. Particularly, functional diversity reduced the probability of a regime shift toward a non-desirable alternative state. The basal-intermediate interaction consistently determined the robustness against a nutrient pulse despite the complex influence of the shape and type of the dynamical attractors. This relationship was strongly influenced by the diversity present and the third trophic level. Overall, using a food web model of realistic complexity, this study confirms the destructive potential of the positive feedback loop between biodiversity loss and robustness, by uncovering mechanisms leading to a decrease in resistance, resilience, and potentially elasticity as functional diversity declines.
KW  - functional diversity
KW  - nutrient spike
KW  - pulse perturbation
KW  - regime shift
KW  - robustness
KW  - tritrophic food web
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8214
SN  - 2045-7758
N1  - Wojcik and Ceulemans shared first authorship.
VL  - 11
IS  - 22
SP  - 15639
EP  - 15663
PB  - John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
CY  - Hoboken (New Jersey)
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Wojcik, Laurie Anne
A1  - Ceulemans, Ruben
A1  - Gaedke, Ursula
T1  - Functional diversity buffers the effects of a pulse perturbation on the dynamics of tritrophic food webs
T2  - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe
N2  - Biodiversity decline causes a loss of functional diversity, which threatens ecosystems through a dangerous feedback loop: This loss may hamper ecosystems’ ability to buffer environmental changes, leading to further biodiversity losses. In this context, the increasing frequency of human-induced excessive loading of nutrients causes major problems in aquatic systems. Previous studies investigating how functional diversity influences the response of food webs to disturbances have mainly considered systems with at most two functionally diverse trophic levels. We investigated the effects of functional diversity on the robustness, that is, resistance, resilience, and elasticity, using a tritrophic—and thus more realistic—plankton food web model. We compared a non-adaptive food chain with no diversity within the individual trophic levels to a more diverse food web with three adaptive trophic levels. The species fitness differences were balanced through trade-offs between defense/growth rate for prey and selectivity/half-saturation constant for predators. We showed that the resistance, resilience, and elasticity of tritrophic food webs decreased with larger perturbation sizes and depended on the state of the system when the perturbation occurred. Importantly, we found that a more diverse food web was generally more resistant and resilient but its elasticity was context-dependent. Particularly, functional diversity reduced the probability of a regime shift toward a non-desirable alternative state. The basal-intermediate interaction consistently determined the robustness against a nutrient pulse despite the complex influence of the shape and type of the dynamical attractors. This relationship was strongly influenced by the diversity present and the third trophic level. Overall, using a food web model of realistic complexity, this study confirms the destructive potential of the positive feedback loop between biodiversity loss and robustness, by uncovering mechanisms leading to a decrease in resistance, resilience, and potentially elasticity as functional diversity declines.
T3  - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1251 
KW  - functional diversity
KW  - nutrient spike
KW  - pulse perturbation
KW  - regime shift
KW  - robustness
KW  - tritrophic food web
Y1  - 2021
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-553730
SN  - 1866-8372
N1  - Wojcik and Ceulemans shared first authorship.
IS  - 1251
ER  -