Recently established predators rewire food webs simplified by extinction
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Since prehistory, humans have altered the composition of ecosystems by causing extinctions and introducing species. However, our understanding of how waves of species extinctions and introductions influence the structure and function of ecological networks through time remains piecemeal. Here, focusing on Australia, which has experienced many extinctions and introductions since the Late Pleistocene, we compared the functional trait composition of Late Pleistocene (130,00-115,000 ybp), Holocene (11,700-3000 ybp), and current Australian mammalian predator assemblages (≥70% vertebrate meat consumption; ≥1kg adult body mass). We then constructed food webs for each period based on estimated prey body mass preferences. We found that introduced predators are functionally distinct from extinct Australian predators but they rewire food webs toward a state that closely resembles the Late Pleistocene, prior to the megafauna extinctions. Both Late Pleistocene and current-day food webs consist of an apex predator and three smaller predators. This leads to food web networks with a similar total number of links, link densities and compartmentalization. However, this similarity depends on the presence of dingoes: in their absence, food webs become simplified and reminiscent of those following the Late Pleistocene extinctions. Our results suggest that recently established predators, even those implicated in species extinctions and declines, can rewire food webs simplified by extinction.
Source: Figshare
Authors: Eamonn Wooster (19701124), Owen Middleton (8128305), Arian Wallach (19701127), Daniel Ramp (486565), Oscar Sanisidro (745603), Valerie Harris (8003300), John Rowan (3137658), Simon Schowanek (8028926), Chris Gordon (2349481), Jens-Christian Svenning (93039), Matt Davis (257102), Jörn Scharlemann (19701130), Dale Nimmo (2793181), Erick Lundgren (5025599), Christopher Sandom (4466128)
Language: English
Subfield: Nature and Landscape Conservation
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6986703322
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