The interaction between species traits and community properties determine food web resistance to species loss

• The ability to identify the ecosystems most vulnerable to species loss is fundamental for the allocation of conservation efforts. With this aim, the traits of keystone species have been investigated, as have the properties defining systems especially sensitive to species loss. However, these two have rarely been investigated in relation to each other. Here we show, that the traits of the species primarily lost act in conjunction with the properties of the food web from which it is lost, in determining the resistance of the system. We find that the extent of bottom-up extinction cascades is determined mainly by traits related to food web topology, while traits related to population dynamics govern the extent of top-down cascades. As different disturbances affect species with different traits, this interaction implies that the characteristics defining a sensitive community depend on the disturbance it is subjected to.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Annan biologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Other Biological Topics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Sequential deletion

species loss

perturbation

stability

robustness

secondary extinction cascades

top-predator loss

meso-predator release

body size

allometric relationships

functional response.

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)