Context dependency of animal resource subsidies : Context dependency of animal resource subsidies

Abstract

The transport of resource subsidies by animals has been documented across a range of species and ecosystems. Although many of these studies have shown that animal resource subsidies can have significant effects on nutrient cycling, ecosystem productivity, and food-web structure, there is a great deal of variability in the occurrence and strength of these effects. Here we propose a conceptual framework for understanding the context dependency of animal resource subsidies, and for developing and testing predictions about the effects of animal subsidies over space and time. We propose a general framework, in which abiotic characteristics and animal vector characteristics from the donor ecosystem interact to determine the quantity, quality, timing, and duration (QQTD) of an animal input. The animal input is translated through the lens of recipient ecosystem characteristics, which include both abiotic and consumer characteristics, to yield the QQTD of the subsidy. The translated subsidy influences recipient ecosystem dynamics through effects on both trophic structure and ecosystem function, which may both influence the recipient ecosystem's response to further inputs and feed back to influence the donor ecosystem. We present a review of research on animal resource subsidies across ecosystem boundaries, placed within the context of this framework, and we discuss how the QQTD of resource subsidies can influence trophic structure and ecosystem function in recipient ecosystems. We explore the importance of understanding context dependency of animal resource subsidies in increasingly altered ecosystems, in which the characteristics of both animal vectors and donor and recipient ecosystems may be changing rapidly. Finally, we make recommendations for future research on animal resource subsidies, and resource subsidies in general, that will increase our understanding and predictive capacity about their ecosystem effects.