Biogeosciences Discussions is the access reviewed discussion forum of Biogeosciences Similar patterns of community organization characterize distinct groups of different trophic levels in the plankton of the NW Mediterranean Sea V. Raybaud, A. Tunin-Ley, M. E. Ritchie, and J. R. Dolan UPMC Univ Paris 6, UMR 7093, Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche, Observatoire Océanologique de Villefr...

The importance of biodiversity for the integrated functioning of ecosystems remains unclear because most evidence comes from analyses of biodiversity's effect on individual functions. Here we show that the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem function become more important as more functions are considered. We present the first systematic investigation of biodiversity's effect on ecosystem multi...

L. Beaudrot ([email protected]), M. Rejm á nek and A. J. Marshall, Graduate Group in Ecology, Univ. of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. LB and AJM also at: Dept of Anthropology, Univ. of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. AJM also at: Animal Behavior Graduate Group, Univ. of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. MR also at: Dept of Evolution and Ecology, Univ. of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.

A rise in temperature will intensify the feeding links involving ectotherms in food webs. However, it is unclear how the effects will quantitatively differ between the plant-herbivore and herbivore-carnivore interface. To test how warming could differentially affect rates of herbivory and carnivory, we studied trophic interaction strength in a food chain comprised of green algae, herbivorous ro...

Recent community genetics studies have shown that specific genotypes of a host plant support distinct arthropod communities. Building upon these findings, we examined the hypothesis that a trophic community consisting of cottonwood trees, a galling herbivore and avian predators could also be related to the genetics of the host tree. We found genetic correlations among phytochemistry of individu...

BACKGROUND Classically, estuarine planktonic research has focussed largely on the physico-chemical drivers of community assemblages leaving a paucity of information on important biological interactions. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Within the context of trophic cascades, various treatments using in situ mesocosms were established in a closed estuary to highlight the importance of predation ...

The Northern California Current (NCC) is a seasonally productive and open ecosystem. It is home to both a diverse endemic community and to seasonally transient species. Productivity and food web structure vary seasonally, interannually, and decadally due to variability in coastal upwelling, climate-scale physical processes, and the migratory species entering the system. The composition of the p...

Stable nitrogen and carbon isotopes were used to investigate trophic ecology in tropical marine bird and fish communities from Reunion Island, western Indian Ocean. Firstly, isotope signatures in the liver of Barau's petrels Pterodroma baraui, Audubon's shearwaters Puffinus lherminieri bailloni, and white-tailed tropicbirds Phaethon lepturus were used to compare their trophic levels and determi...

An ecosystem model was created for the Hudson Bay region, Canada, for 1970–2009, aiming to identify ecosystem linkages while bringing together research from diverse sources. The model presented here in detail includes 40 functional groups. Using the Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) modelling framework we are able to provide estimates for previously unknown parameters such as the biomass of fish specie...

Vertebrate gut microbiome often underpins the metabolic capability and provides many beneficial effects on their hosts. However, little was known about how host trophic level influences fish gut microbiota and metabolic activity. In this study, more than 985,000 quality-filtered sequences from 24 16S rRNA libraries were obtained and the results revealed distinct compositions and diversities of ...