Abstract
Introduced ecosystem engineers are expected to have extensive ecological impacts on a broad range of resident biota by altering the physical–chemical structure of ecosystems. Livestock that are potentially important introduced ecosystem engineers in grassland systems could create and/or modify habitats for native plant-dwelling insects. Yet, there is little knowledge of how insects respond to engineering effects of introduced livestock. To bridge this gap, we tested how domestic sheep affects the behavior and abundance of a native grasshopper Euchorthippus unicolor at both low (11.8 ± 0.4 plant species per plot) and high (19.8 ± 0.5 plant species per plot) diversity sites. Results found grasshoppers shifted their resting and feeding locations from the upper to the intermediate or low layers of vegetation, and fed on more plants species following livestock engineering effects. In the low plant diversity habitats, grazing caused grasshoppers to increase switching frequency, spend more time searching for host plants, and reduce time spent feeding, but had opposite effects on all the three behaviors in the high-diversity habitats. Moreover, grazing engineering effects on behavioral changes of grasshoppers were potentially related to their abundance. Overall, this study highlights native insect species’ behavior and abundance in responses to introduced ecological engineers, and suggests that ecosystem engineers of non-native species have strong and important impacts extending beyond their often most obvious and frequently documented direct ecological effects.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Kathryn Ingerslew for her help in revising an early draft, and Hang Ruan for suggestion in figures. This project was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31770520; 32061143027), National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFC0500602), Program for Introducing Talents to Universities (B16011), the Program for Innovative Research Team in University (IRT-16R11), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2412019FZ029).
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DW, VN, and HZ designed the experiments, VN and JW collected the data, HZ analyzed the data, DW, HZ, and NAB wrote the manuscript, and all authors contributed substantially to revisions.
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Communicated by Diethart Matthies.
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Wang, D., Nkurunziza, V., Barber, N.A. et al. Introduced ecological engineers drive behavioral changes of grasshoppers, consequently linking to its abundance in two grassland plant communities. Oecologia 195, 1007–1018 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04880-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04880-4