Abstract
Most of the known food webs are based on organic compounds provided by photoautotrophic organisms. The terrestrial ecosystem of Malpelo Island (Colombia) seems to be an exception, however, since it supports several trophic guilds without hosting an adequate amount of primary producers. It has been suggested that this apparent paradox might be explained by external inputs provided by seabirds, namely Nazca Boobies (Sula granti), forming a huge colony on Malpelo. This hypothesis has never been tested. Here, we present a first approach to quantify the significance of Nazca Booby inputs into the Malpelo ecosystem via excrement, second eggs/chicks (which are prone to die), and carcasses, respectively, during the major breeding season. The total input was calculated to amount to 171.6 t per breeding season, with excrements accounting for almost 99% (170 t) of this input. Second eggs/chicks contributed approximately 1.1 t (0.64%) and carcasses around 0.1 t (0.06%). These finding support the idea of the Nazca Booby facilitating a food chain that pairs the pelagic primary producers of the open ocean with the terrestrial consumers of an island. Species most strongly profiting from this process include three endemic lizard species (Anolis agassizi, Diploglossus millepunctatus, Phyllodactylus transversalis) and the land crab (Johngarthia malpilensis).
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Acknowledgments
This investigation was partially supported by the Marine and Coastal Research Institute–INVEMAR, the Colombian Institute for the Development of Science and Technology–COLCIENCIAS (Project 2105091352703), the Department of Animal Ecology at the Justus–Liebig–University of Giessen and the German Academic Exchange Service. Further support was provided by the Special Administrative Unit for the System of National Natural Parks of Colombia, the Malpelo Foundation, the National Navy of Colombia and Idea Wild. We are grateful to F.A. Estela, R.L. Pitman and D. Anderson for providing us with some of their field observations on boobies and land crabs. We are also grateful to P.H. Becker and the referees for comments and suggestions that greatly contributed to improve this manuscript. This is contribution #1030 of INVEMAR.
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Communicated by P. H. Becker.
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López-Victoria, M., Wolters, V. & Werding, B. Nazca Booby (Sula granti) inputs maintain the terrestrial food web of Malpelo Island. J Ornithol 150, 865–870 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-009-0407-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-009-0407-1