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Experimental evidence for apparent competition in a tropical forest food web

Author

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  • Rebecca J. Morris

    (Imperial College London)

  • Owen T. Lewis

    (University of Oxford)

  • H. Charles J. Godfray

    (Imperial College London)

Abstract

The herbivorous insects of tropical forests constitute some of the most diverse communities of living organisms1. For this reason it has been difficult to discover the degree to which these communities are structured, and by what processes. Interspecific competition for resources does occur, but its contemporary importance is limited because most pairs of potentially competing insects feed on different host plants2. An alternative way in which species can interact is through shared natural enemies, a process called apparent competition3. Despite extensive theoretical discussion there are few field demonstrations of apparent competition, and none in hyper-diverse tropical communities. Here, we experimentally removed two species of herbivore from a community of leaf-mining insects in a tropical forest. We predicted that other species that share natural enemies with the two removed species would experience lower parasitism and have higher population densities in treatment compared with control sites. In both cases (on removal of a dipteran and a coleopteran leaf-miner species) we found significantly lower parasitism, and in one case (removal of the dipteran) we found significantly higher abundance a year after the manipulation. Our results suggest that apparent competition may be important in structuring tropical insect communities.

Suggested Citation

  • Rebecca J. Morris & Owen T. Lewis & H. Charles J. Godfray, 2004. "Experimental evidence for apparent competition in a tropical forest food web," Nature, Nature, vol. 428(6980), pages 310-313, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:428:y:2004:i:6980:d:10.1038_nature02394
    DOI: 10.1038/nature02394
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    Cited by:

    1. Anderson, Taylor M. & Dragićević, Suzana, 2018. "Network-agent based model for simulating the dynamic spatial network structure of complex ecological systems," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 389(C), pages 19-32.
    2. Ammunét, Tea & Klemola, Tero & Parvinen, Kalle, 2014. "Consequences of asymmetric competition between resident and invasive defoliators: A novel empirically based modelling approach," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 107-117.
    3. Ammar Alhmedi & Tim Belien & Dany Bylemans, 2023. "Habitat Modification Alters Food Web Interactions with Focus on Biological Control of Aphids in Apple Orchards," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-13, March.

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