NDLI: The Impact of Cormorants on Plant–Arthropod Food Webs on Their Nesting Islands

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Kolb, Gundula S. Jerling, Lenn Hambäck, Peter A.
Copyright Year	2010
Abstract	This study investigated the effects of cormorant colonies on plant–arthropod island food webs, the consequences of nutrient-rich runoff on marine communities, and feedback loops from marine to terrestrial ecosystems. Terrestrial plant responses were as expected, with the highest plant biomass on islands with low nest density and the highest nitrogen (N) content on islands with high nest density. In contrast to our hypothesis, we found no uniform density response across guilds. Among herbivores, the variable responses may depend on the relative importance of plant quality or quantity. As expected, nutrient-rich runoff entered water bodies surrounding cormorant nesting islands, but only at high nest density, and increased the density of emerging insects. This created a potential feed-back loop to spiders (major terrestrial predators), where stable isotope analyses suggested great use of chironomids. Contrary to our expectation, this potential feed-back did not result in the highest spider density on islands with a high cormorant nest density. Web spiders showed no changes in density on active cormorant islands, and lycosids were actually less abundant on active cormorant islands compared to reference islands. The variable response of spiders despite increased dipteran densities, and also in other consumer groups, may be due to direct negative effects of cormorants on soil chemistry, vegetation cover, and other density regulating forces (for example, top–down forces) not studied here. This study highlights the importance of including processes in the surrounding marine ecosystem to understand the impacts of seabirds on the food web structures of their nesting islands.
Starting Page	353
Ending Page	366
Page Count	14
File Format	PDF
ISSN	14329840
Journal	Ecosystems
Volume Number	13
Issue Number	3
e-ISSN	14350629
Language	English
Publisher	Springer-Verlag
Publisher Date	2010-03-05
Publisher Place	New York
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	seabird islands food webs vegetation chironomids stable isotopes nitrogen Nature Conservation Geoecology/Natural Processes Environmental Management Zoology Plant Sciences Ecology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Ecology Environmental Chemistry Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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