Biotic interactions in a changing world: the role of feeding interactions in the response of multitrophic communities to rising temperature and nitrogen deposition

Abstract

vii Acknowledgements ix Authorship declaration xi Chapter I: Introduction 1 1.1 A perspective of climate change in ecological research 1 1.2 How does climate change affect us? 2 1.3 The multiple axes of real-world complexity 4 1.3.1 Biodiversity and the importance of interactions among species 4 1.3.2 Biotic complexity: from species to networks 5 1.3.3 Synergistic global environmental change drivers 7 1.4 Thesis objectives and outline 8 Chapter II: Plant-mediated and non-additive effects of two global change drivers on an insect herbivore community 12 2.1 Abstract 12 2.2 Introduction 13 2.3 Material and Methods 15 2.3.1 Study site 15 2.3.2 Experimental design 16 2.3.3 Vegetation survey 18 2.3.4 Data analysis 18 2.4 Results 20 2.4.1 Plant community response to the environmental change drivers: ....... 22