Periodical cicadas disrupt trophic dynamics through community-level shifts in avian foraging

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Getman-Pickering, Zoe L.; Soltis, Grace J.; Shamash, Sarah; Gruner, Daniel S.; Weiss, Martha R.; Lill, John T.
• 署名单位: George Washington University; University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park; Georgetown University; University of Massachusetts System; University of Massachusetts Amherst; State University System of Florida; Florida State University
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-10646
• DOI: 10.1126/science.adi7426
• 发表日期: 2023-10-20
• 页码: 320-324
• 关键词: resource pulses; population; emergence; increase; BEHAVIOR; forest; food; oak; CONSEQUENCES; caterpillars

摘要

Once every 13 or 17 years within eastern North American deciduous forests, billions of periodical cicadas concurrently emerge from the soil and briefly satiate a diverse array of naive consumers, offering a rare opportunity to assess the cascading impacts of an ecosystem-wide resource pulse on a complex food web. We quantified the effects of the 2021 Brood X emergence and report that more than 80 bird speciesopportunistically switched their foraging to include cicadas, releasing herbivorous insects from predation and essentially doubling both caterpillar densities and accumulated herbivory levels on host oak trees. These short-lived but massive emergence events help us to understand how resource pulses can rewire interaction webs and disrupt energy flows in ecosystems, with potentially long-lasting effects.