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Positive indirect effect of tadpoles on a detritivore through nutrient regeneration

  • Ecosystem Ecology
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Abstract

In aquatic food webs consumers can affect other members of the web by releasing nutrients as a result of their feeding activity. There is increasing evidence of these positive effects on primary producers, but such nutrient regeneration can also affect detritivores, by favoring the activities of detritus-associated microbes. We examined the effects of nutrient regeneration by tadpoles on leaf-eating detritivores under laboratory conditions. We fed four species of tadpoles three different food items (leaf litter, algae, and sludgeworms). We then conditioned terrestrial dead leaves with water from reared tadpoles (treatments) or food items alone (controls), and compared the C:N ratios of the conditioned leaves and the growth of the isopod Asellus hilgendorfii fed on the conditioned leaves. Tadpole feeding activity reduced the C:N ratio of conditioned leaves, and the effect was greatest when tadpoles were fed algae. Isopod growth rates were often higher when they were fed the litter conditioned with water from reared tadpoles. Thus, nutrient regeneration by tadpoles had a positive indirect effect on detritivores by enhancing leaf quality. Tadpoles often occur in nutrient-limited habitats where leaf litter is the major energy source, and their facilitative effects on leaf-eating detritivores may be of great significance in food webs by enhancing litter decomposition.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Mitsuhiko Toda for advice, Masahiko Tanahashi for help with measuring snout-vent lengths on the computer, Takashi Nakada for identifying algae, and Ross A. Alford for giving comments on our draft. We also thank Masayo Iwai, Takayuki Matsuo, and colleagues of the Laboratory of Forest Zoology at the University of Tokyo for help with the fieldwork and with care of the tadpoles.

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  1. Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan

    Noriko Iwai & Takashi Kagaya

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  1. Noriko Iwai
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  2. Takashi Kagaya
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Correspondence to Noriko Iwai.

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Communicated by Roland Brandl.

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Iwai, N., Kagaya, T. Positive indirect effect of tadpoles on a detritivore through nutrient regeneration. Oecologia 152, 685–694 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0682-6

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