Apparent competition drives community-wide parasitism rates and changes in host abundance across ecosystem boundaries

Carol M. Frost (), Guadalupe Peralta, Tatyana A. Rand, Raphael K. Didham, Arvind Varsani and Jason M. Tylianakis ()
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Carol M. Frost: Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury
Guadalupe Peralta: Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury
Tatyana A. Rand: USDA-ARS Northern Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory
Raphael K. Didham: School of Animal Biology, The University of Western Australia
Arvind Varsani: Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury
Jason M. Tylianakis: Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Species have strong indirect effects on others, and predicting these effects is a central challenge in ecology. Prey species sharing an enemy (predator or parasitoid) can be linked by apparent competition, but it is unknown whether this process is strong enough to be a community-wide structuring mechanism that could be used to predict future states of diverse food webs. Whether species abundances are spatially coupled by enemy movement across different habitats is also untested. Here, using a field experiment, we show that predicted apparent competitive effects between species, mediated via shared parasitoids, can significantly explain future parasitism rates and herbivore abundances. These predictions are successful even across edges between natural and managed forests, following experimental reduction of herbivore densities by aerial spraying of insecticide over 20 hectares. This result shows that trophic indirect effects propagate across networks and habitats in important, predictable ways, with implications for landscape planning, invasion biology and biological control.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12644

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