Trophic structures of tropical forests: novel integration using stable isotopes
Principal Investigator: Dr K Hamer
Co-Investigator: Prof SH Bottrell
Sponsor: The Leverhulme Trust
Value: £131579
Dates: 01.10.2006 to 30.09.2009
Summary
Understanding the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning is one of the major challenges facing ecologists today. This is a particular concern for tropical rain forests, which are exceptionally species-rich and are being degraded and fragmented at an alarming rate. One of the most important and far-reaching aspects of ecosystem functioning concerns the trophic organization of biological communities, but practical and logistic constraints mean that this has been little studied, especially in species-rich ecosystems. Here we propose a novel approach using stable isotopes to provide powerful integrated information on the mean trophic positions and trophic niche widths of species, and to test hypotheses concerning the trophic organization of natural and perturbed tropical rain forests. In particular, we shall distinguish between impacts of changes in habitat quality and species richness, examine both functional food-chain length and trophic responses of individual species, and compare responses among predatory taxa at different trophic levels. If successful, this innovative approach will uniquely address issues relating to biodiversity in species-rich ecosystems and will for the first time permit an assessment of how disturbance affects the trophic organization of higher predators. This would represent a significant contribution to the advancement of research on biodiversity and ecosystem biology, and would address fundamental questions relating to the functional organization of species-rich communities in natural and managed landscapes.