OPUS: Food Web Dynamics in Pond Metacommunities

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

This project will provide support to allow the PI to write a monograph on how pond food webs function. It will combine theory with experimental results and observations in natural ponds to evaluate the complex set of processes involved. In contrast with previous work that has emphasized only processes that occur within single ponds, this book will explore how dispersal among many ponds affects these processes and their outcomes. Recent work done to date on this topic shows that dispersal dramatically alters food web dynamics and this book will explain why this is so. Understanding how food webs function is critical in understanding how environmental change is likely to affect natural ecosystems. It is becoming increasingly clear that such effects do not occur in each ecosystem in isolation but rather that dispersal connecting multiple ecosystems is a key factor. The implications for the management of environmental issues of concern are that management will have to be based on a landscape perspective that accounts for the effects of dispersal rather than be focused on piecemeal approaches that ignore such effects.