Skip to main content

Food Webs at the Landscape Level

Scientists rely on food webs—complex networks that trace the flow of nutrients and energy between species and through ecosystems—to understand the infrastructure of ecological communities.

But given the complexities of food webs—think of following the flow of nutrients through the microbes, fungi, roots, worms, ants, and birds that pass over or through a single cubic meter of prairie soil—it’s not difficult to see why most experiments on food-web dynamics focus on small, local habitats. Yet as this book convincingly shows, important insights come when scientists expand the temporal and spatial scope of their research to look at the ways energy, organisms, nutrients, and pollutants flow not just at the local level, but across whole landscapes—between and among food webs in a wide variety of habitats.

Paying special attention to the fertile boundaries between terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, Food Webs at the Landscape Level not only shows what this new methodology means for ecology, conservation, and agriculture but also serves as a fitting tribute to Gary Polis and his major contributions to the field.

528 pages | 4 halftones, 88 line drawings, 20 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2004

Biological Sciences: Biology--Systematics, Botany, Conservation, Ecology

Table of Contents

Preface
Part I. Fluxes of Nutrients and Detritus across Habitats
1. Overview: Cross-Habitat Flux of Nutrients and Detritus
Michael J. Vanni, Donald L. DeAngelis, Daniel E. Schindler, and Gary R. Huxel
2. Dynamic Consequences of Allochthonous Nutrient Input to Freshwater Systems
Donald L. DeAngelis and Patrick J. Mulholland
3. Using Stable Isotopes to Quantify Material Transport in Food Webs
Daniel E. Schindler and Susan C. Lubetkin
4. Cross-Habitat Transport of Nutrients by Omnivorous Fish along a Productivity Gradient: Integrating Watersheds and Reservoir Food Webs
Michael J. Vanni and Jenifer L. Headworth
5. Bottom-Up/Top-Down Determination of Rocky Intertidal Shorescape Dynamics
Bruce A. Menge
6. Allochthonous Nutrient and Food Inputs: Consequences for Temporal Stability
Wendy B. Anderson and Gary A. Polis
7. Implications of System Openness for Local Community Structure and Ecosystem Function
Robert D. Holt
8. Migratory Neotropical Fishes Subsidize Food Webs of Oligotrophic Blackwater Rivers
Kirk O. Winemiller and David B. Jepsen
9. Benthic-Pelagic Linkages in Subtidal Communities: Influence of Food Subsidy by Internal Waves
Jon D. Witman, Mark R. Patterson, and Salvatore J. Genovese
10. Effect of Landscape Boundaries on the Flux of Nutrients, Detritus, and Organisms
M. L. Cadenasso, S. T. A. Pickett, and K. C. Weathers
11. The Variation of Lake Food Webs across the Landscape and Its Effect on Contaminant Dynamics
Joseph B. Rasmussen and M. Jake Vander Zanden
Part II. Food Web Dynamics across the Land-Water Interface
12. Food Web Subsidies at the Land-Water Ecotone
M. Jake Vander Zanden and Diane M. Sanzone
13. Subsidized Predation along River Shores Affects Terrestrial Herbivore and Plant Success
Joh R. Henschel
14. Trophic Flows from Water to Land: Marine Input Affects Food Webs of Islands and Coastal Ecosystems Worldwide
Gary A. Polis, Francisco Sánchez-Piñero, Paul T. Stapp, Wendy B. Anderson, and Michael D. Rose
15. River-to-Watershed Subsidies in an Old-Growth Conifer Forest
Mary E. Power, William E. Rainey, Michael S. Parker, John L. Sabo, Adrianna Smyth, Sapna Khandwala, Jacques C. Finlay, F. Camille McNeely, Kevin Marsee, and Clarissa Anderson
16. Sources and Effects of Subsidies along the Stream-Estuary Continuum
Ralph H. Riley, Colin R. Townsend, Dave A. Raffaelli, and Alex S. Flecker
Part III. Subsidies at Regional and Global Scales
17. Integrating Food Web and Landscape Ecology: Subsidies at the Regional Scale
M. L. Cadenasso, K. C. Weathers, and S. T. A. Pickett
18. Agricultural Nutrient Subsidies to Migratory Geese and Change in Arctic Coastal Habitats
Robert L. Jefferies, Hugh A. L. Henry, and Kenneth F. Abraham
19. Anadromous Fishes as Ecological Links between Ocean, Fresh Water, and Land
Mary F. Willson, Scott M. Gende, and Peter A. Bisson
20. When Terrestrial Organic Matter Is Sent down the River: The Importance of Allochthonous Carbon Inputs to the Metabolism of Lakes and Rivers
Nina Caraco and Jonathan Cole
21. Trophic Flows and Spatial Heterogeneity in Agricultural Landscapes
Jacques Baudry and Françoise Burel
Part IV. Synthesis
22. The Influence of Physical Processes, Organisms, and Permeability on Cross-Ecosystem Fluxes
Jon D. Witman, Julie C. Ellis, and Wendy B. Anderson
23. Feast and Famine in Food Webs: The Effects of Pulsed Productivity
Anna L. W. Sears, Robert D. Holt, and Gary A. Polis
24. Subsidy Effects on Managed Ecosystems: Implications for Sustainable Harvest, Conservation, and Control
Mary E. Power, Michael J. Vanni, Paul T. Stapp, and Gary A. Polis
25. Subsidy Dynamics and Global Change
Ralph H. Riley and Robert L. Jefferies
26. At the Frontier of the Integration of Food Web Ecology and Landscape Ecology
Gary R. Huxel, Gary A. Polis, and Robert D. Holt
References
Contributors
Index

Be the first to know

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press