Bug-Network (BugNet) - local partner

A global co-operative research network

Ecological theory predicts that consumer impacts vary across environmental gradients. Impacts likely depend on abiotic conditions at large spatial scales, such as climate (latitude, elevation) and crop productivity, but also on abiotic and biotic factors operating at smaller spatial scales, such as plant diversity and soil fertility (bottom-up) and predator abundance (top-down).

Our knowledge of how consumer communities and their effects vary across environmental gradients is surprisingly limited. Existing studies vary considerably in their methodologies, making generalisations across large scales difficult, requiring comparative approaches using standardised protocols across sites. This is particularly important if we want to understand how global changes, such as climate and land-use change, will alter consumer communities and their functioning.

Few studies have examined the impacts of specific consumer groups, such as molluscs and fungal pathogens, and we know little about whether the impacts of different consumers vary along environmental gradients. Different consumer groups may also interact: In general, we might expect compensatory interactions between consumers attacking different, competing plant species and additive interactions between consumers attacking the same plant species.

See project homepage

Phase 2 - Experimental study (2023-2028)
Field location in Bonn: Campus Klein-Altendorf Süd

Research questions:
1) Do insect herbivores, molluscs and fungal pathogens differ in their impacts on plant communities?
2) Do they interact with each other and how?
3) When do invertebrate herbivores and fungal pathogens have the strongest impacts on plant communities (productivity, community composition and diversity)?

We evaluate the effects of consumers with exclusion experiments and quantify the responses of plant communities and ecosystems.