Donor-Control of Scavenging Food Webs at the Land-Ocean Interface

Thomas Schlacher; Simone Strydom; R M Connolly; David S Schoeman

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0068221

Back

Donor-Control of Scavenging Food Webs at the Land-Ocean Interface

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Donor-Control of Scavenging Food Webs at the Land-Ocean Interface

Thomas Schlacher, Simone Strydom, R M Connolly and David S Schoeman

PLoS One, Vol.8(6), e68221

2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068221

Appears in UniSC Supported Open Access Outputs

Files and links (2)

pdf

PDF - Published Version (Open Access)3.91 MBDownload View

Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access

url

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068221View

Published Version

Abstract

food webs

land-ocean interface

Food webs near the interface of adjacent ecosystems are potentially subsidised by the flux of organic matter across system boundaries. Such subsidies, including carrion of marine provenance, are predicted to be instrumental on open-coast sandy shores where in situ productivity is low and boundaries are long and highly permeable to imports from the sea. We tested the effect of carrion supply on the structure of consumer dynamics in a beach-dune system using broad-scale, repeated additions of carcasses at the strandline of an exposed beach in eastern Australia. Carrion inputs increased the abundance of large invertebrate scavengers (ghost crabs, Ocypode spp.), a numerical response most strongly expressed by the largest size-class in the population, and likely due to aggregative behaviour in the short term. Consumption of carrion at the beach-dune interface was rapid and efficient, driven overwhelmingly by facultative avian scavengers. This guild of vertebrate scavengers comprises several species of birds of prey (sea eagles, kites), crows and gulls, which reacted strongly to concentrations of fish carrion, creating hotspots of intense scavenging activity along the shoreline. Detection of carrion effects at several trophic levels suggests that feeding links arising from carcasses shape the architecture and dynamics of food webs at the land-ocean interface.

Details

Title: Donor-Control of Scavenging Food Webs at the Land-Ocean Interface
Authors: Thomas Schlacher (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering
Simone Strydom (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering
R M Connolly (Author) - Griffith University
David S Schoeman (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering
Publication details: PLoS One, Vol.8(6), e68221
Publisher: Public Library of Science
Date published: 2013
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068221
ISSN: 1932-6203
Copyright note: Copyright © 2013 Schlacher et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Organisation Unit: School of Science and Engineering - Legacy; School of Science, Technology and Engineering
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99448938102621
Output Type: Journal article

Metrics

38 File views/ downloads

663 Record Views

43 Times Cited - Web of Science

See more details

InCites Highlights

These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output

Collaboration types: Domestic collaboration
Web Of Science research areas: Ecology

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

Source: InCites