Abstract
Although global change can reshape ecosystems by triggering cascading effects on food webs, indirect interactions remain largely overlooked. Climate- and land-use-induced changes in landscape cause shifts in vegetation composition, which affect entire food webs. We used simulations of forest dynamics and movements of interacting species, parameterized by empirical observations, to predict the outcomes of global change on a large-mammal food web in the boreal forest. We demonstrate that climate- and land-use-induced changes in forest landscapes exacerbate asymmetrical apparent competition between moose and threatened caribou populations through wolf predation. Although increased prey mortalities came from both behavioral and numerical responses, indirect effects from numerical responses had an overwhelming effect. The increase in caribou mortalities was exacerbated by the cumulating effects of land use over the short term and climate change impacts over the long term, with higher impact of land use. Indirect trophic interactions will be key to understanding community dynamics under global change.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e4485 |
| Journal | Ecosphere |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2023 |
Funding
This research was supported by the Sentinel North program of Université Laval and made possible, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. We thank the NSERC‐Laval University Industrial Research Chair in Silviculture and Wildlife for providing financial support for the acquisition of animal monitoring data used for this project. We acknowledge Calcul Québec and Compute Canada for their technical support and computing infrastructures. information Canadian Network for Research and Innovation in Machining Technology, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Grant/Award Number: 193891; Sentinel North program of Université LavalThis research was supported by the Sentinel North program of Université Laval and made possible, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. We thank the NSERC-Laval University Industrial Research Chair in Silviculture and Wildlife for providing financial support for the acquisition of animal monitoring data used for this project. We acknowledge Calcul Québec and Compute Canada for their technical support and computing infrastructures.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Université Laval | |
| 193891 | |
Keywords
- apparent competition
- behavioral response
- climate change
- land use change
- numerical response
- species conservation
- species interactions
