Climate drives the geography of marine consumption by changing predator communities.
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2020-11
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The global distribution of primary production and consumption by humans (fisheries) is well-documented, but we have no map linking the central ecological process of consumption within food webs to temperature and other ecological drivers. Using standardized assays that span 105° of latitude on four continents, we show that rates of bait consumption by generalist predators in shallow marine ecosystems are tightly linked to both temperature and the composition of consumer assemblages. Unexpectedly, rates of consumption peaked at midlatitudes (25 to 35°) in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres across both seagrass and unvegetated sediment habitats. This pattern contrasts with terrestrial systems, where biotic interactions reportedly weaken away from the equator, but it parallels an emerging pattern of a subtropical peak in marine biodiversity. The higher consumption at midlatitudes was closely related to the type of consumers present, which explained rates of consumption better than consumer density, biomass, species diversity, or habitat. Indeed, the apparent effect of temperature on consumption was mostly driven by temperature-associated turnover in consumer community composition. Our findings reinforce the key influence of climate warming on altered species composition and highlight its implications for the functioning of Earth's ecosystems.
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Whalen, Matthew A, Ross DB Whippo, John J Stachowicz, Paul H York, Erin Aiello, Teresa Alcoverro, Andrew H Altieri, Lisandro Benedetti-Cecchi, et al. (2020). Climate drives the geography of marine consumption by changing predator communities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(45). pp. 28160–28166. 10.1073/pnas.2005255117 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/22430.
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Brian Reed Silliman
Brian Silliman is the Rachel Carson Distinguished Professor of Marine Conservation Biology. He holds both B.A. and M.S. degrees from the University of Virginia, and completed his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University. In recognition of his research achievements, Silliman was named a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America in 2023, Distinguished Fulbright Chair with CSIRO in 2019; a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences in 2015; a Visiting Professor with the Royal Netherlands Society of Arts and Sciences in 2011; and David H. Smith Conservation Fellow with The Nature Conservancy in 2004. He has also received several awards, including the Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Naturalists (2006), a Young Investigator Grant Award from the Andrew Mellon Foundation (2007), and a NSF Career Grant Award (2011). Dr. Silliman has published 25 book chapters and over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, and co-edited five books: Marine Community Ecology and Conservation, Marine Ecosystem Restoration: Challenges and New Horizons, Human Impacts on Salt Marshes: A Global Perspective, Effective Conservation: Data not Dogma, and Marine Disease Ecology. His teaching and research are focused on community ecology, food webs, conservation and restoration, global change, and evolution and ecological consequences of cooperative behavior.
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