Abstract
Trophic structure, or the distribution of biomass among producers and consumers, determines key ecosystem values, such as the abundance of infectious, harvestable or conservation target species, and the storage and cycling of carbon and nutrients. There has been much debate on what controls ecosystem trophic structure, yet the answer is still elusive. Here we show that the nutritional quality of primary producers controls the trophic structure of ecosystems. By increasing the efficiency of trophic transfer, higher producer nutritional quality results in steeper ecosystem trophic structure, and those changes are more pronounced in terrestrial than in aquatic ecosystems probably due to the more stringent nutritional limitation of terrestrial herbivores. These results explain why ecosystems composed of highly nutritional primary producers feature high consumer productivity, fast energy recycling, and reduced carbon accumulation. Anthropogenic changes in producer nutritional quality, via changes in trophic structure, may alter the values and functions of ecosystems, and those alterations may be more important in terrestrial ecosystems.
Highlights
The distribution of biomass among producers and consumers, or trophic structure, determines important ecosystem properties such as dynamical stability [1,2], the abundance of infectious, harvestable or conservation target species [3], and carbon and nutrient recycling and accumulation [4,5]
Higher producer nutritional quality could, through enhanced efficiency of trophic transfer, lead to the longer food chains typically found in aquatic ecosystems, which in turn could further contribute to higher herbivore-to-producer biomass ratios through alleviation of predation of herbivores by primary carnivores [12,13]
We have already shown that aquatic or terrestrial ecosystems with higher producer nutritional quality support higher rates of herbivory
Summary
The distribution of biomass among producers and consumers, or trophic structure, determines important ecosystem properties such as dynamical stability [1,2], the abundance of infectious, harvestable or conservation target species [3], and carbon and nutrient recycling and accumulation [4,5]. If this is the case, ecosystems with higher producer nutritional quality should, regardless of whether they are aquatic or terrestrial, feature larger herbivore biomass, higher herbivory rates, smaller producer biomass and steeper trophic structure (i.e. higher herbivore-to-producer biomass ratios).
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