What happens when thermally vulnerable species are removed from food web networks?
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1
Universidade de Lisboa, MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Faculdade de Ciências, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal , Portugal
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2
Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, CERIS, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Avenida Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001-Lisboa, Portugal, Portugal
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3
Universidade de São Paulo, Centro de Biologia Marinha, Universidade de São Paulo, Rod. Manoel Hipólito do Rego, km 131.5, São Sebastião, SP, Brazil, Brazil
Intertidal rock pool environments harbor particularly high biodiversity and constitute important refuges for early stages of many marine organisms. These environments have little thermal inertia and can attain temperatures that are higher than the maximum critical temperatures (CTMax) of some of its’ species. In this study tropical and temperate rock pools were used as mesocosms to understand what happens to the network structure of food webs when thermally vulnerable species are removed. Highly defined food web networks were assembled for rock pools in Brazil and in Portugal, where the CTMax of its more common species was already tested. Species were sequentially removed from the food web based on their thermal vulnerability. Structural robustness was defined as the fraction of species that had to be removed in order to result in the loss of ≥50% of the species in the original web (i.e. primary species removals plus secondary extinctions). Tropical and temperate food webs revealed similar robustness, however tropical food webs presented alterations in more food web properties.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to the institutions and staff that hosted this work: CEBIMAR-USP and Instituto Oceanográfico-USP. This study had the support of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology through the WarmingWebs project, PTDC/MAR-EST/2141/2012, the “Investigador FCT” position granted to C. Vinagre and the strategic project UID/MAR/04292/2013 granted to MARE. The authors are grateful to Jennifer Dunne (Santa Fe Institute) for guidance in the initial steps of this idea.
Keywords:
Food Web Dynamics,
Network analysis,
Climate Change,
Rocky intertidal,
predator-prey interactions
Conference:
IMMR'18 | International Meeting on Marine Research 2018, Peniche, Portugal, 5 Jul - 6 Jul, 2018.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Biodiversity, Conservation and Coastal Management
Citation:
Vinagre
C,
Mendonça
V,
Madeira
C,
Dias
M,
Silva
A and
Flores
AA
(2019). What happens when thermally vulnerable species are removed from food web networks?.
Front. Mar. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
IMMR'18 | International Meeting on Marine Research 2018.
doi: 10.3389/conf.FMARS.2018.06.00042
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Received:
24 Apr 2018;
Published Online:
07 Jan 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Catarina Vinagre, Universidade de Lisboa, MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Faculdade de Ciências, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal, cmvinagre@ualg.pt