Stephan, Jörg and Pourazari, Fereshteh and Tattersdill, Kristina and Kobayashi, Takuya and Nishizawa, Keita and De Long, Jonathan
(2017).
Long-term deer exclosure alters soil properties, plant traits, understory plant community and insect herbivory, but not the functional relationships among them.
Oecologia. 184
, 685-699
[Journal article]
![]() |
PDF
- Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. 1MB |
Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00442-017-3895-3
Abstract
Evidence of the indirect effects of increasing global deer populations on other trophic levels is increasing. However, it remains unknown if excluding deer alters ecosystem functional relationships. We investigated how sika deer exclosure after 18 years changed soil conditions, the understory plant community, the traits of a dominant understory plant (Sasa palmata), herbivory by three insect-feeding guilds, and the functional relationships between these properties. Deer absence decreased understory plant diversity, but increased soil organic matter and ammonium concentrations. When deer were absent, S. palmata plants grew taller, with more, larger, and tougher leaves with higher polyphenol concentrations. Deer absence led to higher leaf area consumed by all insect guilds, but lower insect herbivory per plant due to increased resource abundance (i.e., a dilution effect). This indicates that deer presence strengthened insect herbivory per plant, while in deer absence plants compensated losses with growth. Because plant defenses increased in the absence of deer, higher insect abundances in deer absence may have outweighed lower consumption rates. A path model revealed that the functional relationships between the measured properties were similar between deer absence versus presence. Taken together, deer altered the abiotic and biotic environment, thereby changing insect herbivory, which might impact upon nutrient cycling and primary productivity. These results provide evidence that deer can alter interactions between trophic levels, but that functional relationships between certain ecosystem components may remain constant. These findings highlight the need to consider how increasing global deer populations can have cascade effects that might alter ecosystem dynamics.
Authors/Creators: | Stephan, Jörg and Pourazari, Fereshteh and Tattersdill, Kristina and Kobayashi, Takuya and Nishizawa, Keita and De Long, Jonathan | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Title: | Long-term deer exclosure alters soil properties, plant traits, understory plant community and insect herbivory, but not the functional relationships among them | ||||||
Series Name/Journal: | Oecologia | ||||||
Year of publishing : | 2017 | ||||||
Volume: | 184 | ||||||
Page range: | 685-699 | ||||||
Number of Pages: | 15 | ||||||
Publisher: | Springer | ||||||
ISSN: | 1432-1939 | ||||||
Language: | English | ||||||
Publication Type: | Journal article | ||||||
Refereed: | Yes | ||||||
Article category: | Scientific peer reviewed | ||||||
Version: | Published version | ||||||
Copyright: | Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 | ||||||
Full Text Status: | Public | ||||||
Subjects: | (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 1 Natural sciences > 106 Biological Sciences (Medical to be 3 and Agricultural to be 4) > Ecology | ||||||
Agrovoc terms: | herbivores, trophic levels, plant defense reactions, plasticity | ||||||
Keywords: | Trophic cascade, Phenotypic plasticity, Herbivore load, Plant diversity, Plant defense | ||||||
URN:NBN: | urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-e-4581 | ||||||
Permanent URL: | http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-e-4581 | ||||||
Additional ID: |
| ||||||
ID Code: | 14868 | ||||||
Faculty: | NJ - Fakulteten för naturresurser och jordbruksvetenskap S - Faculty of Forest Sciences | ||||||
Department: | (NL, NJ) > Department of Aquatic Resources (NL, NJ) > Dept. of Ecology (S) > Dept. of Ecology (NL, NJ) > Department of Plant Biology (from 140101) (S) > Dept. of Forest Ecology and Management | ||||||
Deposited By: | SLUpub Connector | ||||||
Deposited On: | 18 Dec 2017 12:24 | ||||||
Metadata Last Modified: | 09 Feb 2019 20:33 |
Repository Staff Only: item control page