Ecological stoichiometry of plant-herbivore interactions
Project Description
We propose a working group to investigate how the ecological stoichiometry of plant-herbivore interactions influences community dynamics in terrestrial and aquatic habitats. The relative availability of the elements carbon [C], nitrogen [N], and phosphorous [P] in autotrophic resource species in comparison with the relative demand for those elements in the body tissues of consumer species is believed to underlie major aspects of community organization in pelagic systems. Similar stoichiometric perspectives are rarely applied in studies of terrestrial plant-herbivore systems, even though suitable data exist on which to base preliminary syntheses. We seek to investigate how the stoichiometry of primary producers and herbivores compares between aquatic and terrestrial systems and how differences between habitats scale as functions of consumer body size, phylogeny, and specific growth rate. These analyses will provide insight into the ways in which organisms? elemental stoichiometry influences plant-herbivore dynamics and food web structure and function. Spatial modeling of stoichiometric plant-herbivore dynamics should yield novel insights into issues of species coexistence and spatial patterning. Over all this research will offer a new, synthetic perspective on the ways food web structure and dynamics link population and ecosystem level processes.

Principal Investigator(s)
Project Dates
Start: January 1, 1999
End: January 24, 2001
completed
Participants
- Thomas Andersen
- Norwegian Institute for Water Research
- Robert F. Denno
- University of Maryland, College Park
- Dean R. Dobberfuhl
- Arizona State University
- James J. Elser
- Arizona State University
- William F. Fagan
- Arizona State University
- Ayoola Folarin
- Arizona State University
- Gretchen Gettel
- Unknown
- Dag Hessen
- University of Oslo
- Andrea Huberty
- University of Maryland, College Park
- Sebastian Interlandi
- Drexel University
- Susan S. Kilham
- Drexel University
- Edward McCauley
- University of Calgary
- Charles Mitter
- University of Maryland, College Park
- Erik B. Muller
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Roger M. Nisbet
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Kimberly L. Schulz
- State University of New York (SUNY), College of Environmental Science and Forestry
- Evan Siemann
- Rice University
- Jotaro Urabe
- Kyoto University
Products
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Journal Article / 2003
Might nitrogen limitation promote omnivory among carnivorous arthropods?
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Journal Article / 2000
Nutritional constraints in terrestrial and freshwater food webs
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Presentations / 2001
Modeling the effects of herbivore stoichiometry on the stability of plant-herbivore systems
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Journal Article / 2002
Nitrogen in insects: Implications for trophic complexity and species diversification
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Data Set / 2006
Ecological stoichiometry of plant-herbivore interactions
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Journal Article / 2001
Stoichiometric food quality and herbivore dynamics