On the Interface of Food Webs and Spatial Ecology: The Trophic Dimension of Species–Area Relationships

Abstract

We review trophic biogeography theory, a growing sub-discipline in ecology that seeks to merge food web ecology with the theory of island biogeography. We start by presenting a deliberately provocative theory, extending neutral community theory to multi-trophic systems, where one does not pay attention to the details of interactions across trophic levels, but rather emphasizes the consequences of traits associated with trophic rank, such as dispersal rates. Our results suggest that the effect of trophic rank on dispersal rates is a key driver of trophic rank effects on species–area relationships. We then examine effects of trophic specialization on species–area relationships, after which we turn to the implications of trophic generalization. An important arena of recent work is elucidating the impact of top down effects in food webs on species–area relationships. Lastly, we offer insights into key avenues for future research including the impact of cross-ecosystem subsidies in driving patterns of biodiversity in heterogeneous landscapes, the need to consider how species coexistence mechanisms may shift across islands or habitat patches varying in area and isolation, and assessing the evolutionary dimension of trophic influences on species–area relationships.

Topics & Concepts