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Plant reproductive ...
Plant reproductive traits mediate tritrophic feedback effects within an obligate brood-site pollination mutualism
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- Revadi, Santosh (author)
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences,Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet,Växtskyddsbiologi,Department of Plant Protection Biology
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(creator_code:org_t)
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- 2015-07-11
- 2015
- English.
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In: Oecologia. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0029-8549 .- 1432-1939. ; 179, s. 797-809
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https://res.slu.se/i...
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https://doi.org/10.1...
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Abstract
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- Plants, herbivores and parasitoids affect each other directly and indirectly; however, feedback effects mediated by host plant traits have rarely been demonstrated in these tritrophic interactions. Brood-site pollination mutualisms (e.g. those involving figs and fig wasps) represent specialised tritrophic communities where the progeny of mutualistic pollinators and of non-mutualistic gallers (both herbivores) together with that of their parasitoids develop within enclosed inflorescences called syconia (hence termed brood-sites or microcosms). Plant reproductive phenology (which affects temporal brood-site availability) and inflorescence size (representing brood-site size) are plant traits that could affect reproductive resources, and hence relationships between trees, pollinators and non-pollinating wasps. Analysing wasp and seed contents of syconia, we examined direct, indirect, trophic and non-trophic relationships within the interaction web of the fig-fig wasp community of Ficus racemosa in the context of brood site size and availability. We demonstrate that in addition to direct resource competition and predator-prey (host-parasitoid) interactions, these communities display exploitative or apparent competition and trait-mediated indirect interactions. Inflorescence size and plant reproductive phenology impacted plant-herbivore and plant-parasitoid associations. These plant traits also influenced herbivore-herbivore and herbivore-parasitoid relationships via indirect effects. Most importantly, we found a reciprocal effect between within-tree reproductive asynchrony and fig wasp progeny abundances per syconium that drives a positive feedback cycle within the system. The impact of a multitrophic feedback cycle within a community built around a mutualistic core highlights the need for a holistic view of plant-herbivore-parasitoid interactions in the community ecology of mutualisms.
Subject headings
- NATURVETENSKAP -- Biologi -- Botanik (hsv//swe)
- NATURAL SCIENCES -- Biological Sciences -- Botany (hsv//eng)
- NATURVETENSKAP -- Biologi -- Ekologi (hsv//swe)
- NATURAL SCIENCES -- Biological Sciences -- Ecology (hsv//eng)
Publication and Content Type
- ref (subject category)
- art (subject category)
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