@article{14adfff8cd9347e1b9504ec80c48f933,
title = "Habitat fragmentation changes top-down and bottom-up controls of food webs",
abstract = "Top-down and bottom-up controls regulate the structure and stability of ecosystems, but their relative roles in terrestrial systems have been debated. Here we studied a hydro-inundated land-bridge system in subtropical China and tested the relative importance of these two controls in determining the rodent-mediated regeneration of a locally dominant tree species. Our results showed that both controls operated in terrestrial habitats and that their relative importance switched as habitat size changed. Habitat loss initially removed predators of rodents that released rodent populations and triggered massive seed predation (top-down control), leading to reduced seedling establishment. A further reduction in habitat size led to decrease in rodent population that was supposed to increase seedling survival of the tree species, but the decline in habitat size deteriorated the abiotic environments (bottom-up control) that severely prevented seedling recruitment. As the ongoing global land use change is creating increasing number of small-sized forest fragments, our findings provide novel insights into the restoration of seriously fragmented forests.",
keywords = "food web structure, habitat fragmentation, habitat loss, land-bridge system, seedling recruitment, subtropical evergreen broadleaved forests, top-down and bottom-up controls",
author = "Rong Wang and Xin Zhang and Shi, {Yi Su} and Li, {Yuan Yuan} and Jianguo Wu and Fangliang He and Chen, {Xiao Yong}",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Gao‐Fu Xu, Ying‐Liang Liu, Da‐Wei Gao, Bang‐Quan Gao, Shen‐Ming Guan, Bin Ai, Yuan Miao, Bin Liu, and Miao‐Miao Shi for their supports for field surveys, and Long‐Biao Zhu for identifying rodent species. XYC, RW, and FH designed the study; RW, XYC, JW, and FH analyzed the data; RW, XZ, YSS, and YYL collected the data; all authors contributed to paper writing. This work was supported by the National Key Research & Development Program (2016YFC0503102), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grants 31361123001 and 30970430, National Science Foundation (NSF) grants DEB‐1342751 and DEB‐1342757 (to XYC), and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (to FH). Funding Information: We thank Gao-Fu Xu, Ying-Liang Liu, Da-Wei Gao, Bang-Quan Gao, Shen-Ming Guan, Bin Ai, Yuan Miao, Bin Liu, and Miao-Miao Shi for their supports for field surveys, and Long-Biao Zhu for identifying rodent species. XYC, RW, and FH designed the study; RW, XYC, JW, and FH analyzed the data; RW, XZ, YSS, and YYL collected the data; all authors contributed to paper writing. This work was supported by the National Key Research & Development Program (2016YFC0503102), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grants 31361123001 and 30970430, National Science Foundation (NSF) grants DEB-1342751 and DEB-1342757 (to XYC), and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (to FH). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 by the Ecological Society of America",
year = "2020",
month = aug,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1002/ecy.3062",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "101",
journal = "Ecology",
issn = "0012-9658",
publisher = "Ecological Society of America",
number = "8",
}