Plant diversity alters the representation of motifs in food webs

Darren P. Giling (), Anne Ebeling, Nico Eisenhauer, Sebastian T. Meyer, Christiane Roscher, Michael Rzanny, Winfried Voigt, Wolfgang W. Weisser and Jes Hines
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Darren P. Giling: German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Anne Ebeling: Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Nico Eisenhauer: German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Sebastian T. Meyer: Technical University of Munich
Christiane Roscher: German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Michael Rzanny: Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry
Winfried Voigt: Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Wolfgang W. Weisser: Technical University of Munich
Jes Hines: German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Changes in the diversity of plant communities may undermine the economically and environmentally important consumer species they support. The structure of trophic interactions determines the sensitivity of food webs to perturbations, but rigorous assessments of plant diversity effects on network topology are lacking. Here, we use highly resolved networks from a grassland biodiversity experiment to test how plant diversity affects the prevalence of different food web motifs, the smaller recurrent sub-networks that form the building blocks of complex networks. We find that the representation of tri-trophic chain, apparent competition and exploitative competition motifs increases with plant species richness, while the representation of omnivory motifs decreases. Moreover, plant species richness is associated with altered patterns of local interactions among arthropod consumers in which plants are not directly involved. These findings reveal novel structuring forces that plant diversity exerts on food webs with potential implications for the persistence and functioning of multitrophic communities.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08856-0

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