The Complementary Relationship of Bison Grazing and Arthropod Herbivory in Structuring a Tallgrass Prairie Community |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Researches, CAS, Beijing, 100101, China;2. State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environment Information System, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Researches, CAS, Beijing, 100101, China;3. Tibet Agriculture and Animal Husbandry College, Tibet, 850400, China;4. Jiangsu Center for Collaborative innovation in Geographic Information Resource Development and Application, Nanjing, 210023, China;5. InuTeq/U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, Sioux Falls, SD 57198, USA;6. State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institution of Botany, CAS, Beijing, 100093, China;1. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), Carretera Panamericana y Periférico Sur s/n, 29290 San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México;2. Instituto de Investigación de Zonas Desérticas, Universidad autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Altair 200 Facc. Del Llano, San Luis Potosí, SLP, México;3. Instituto de Estudios e Investigación Intercultural A.C. Franz Blom 38-A, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México;1. School of Environment and Natural Resources, The Ohio State University, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA;2. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Seney National Wildlife Refuge, 1674 Refuge Entrance Road, Seney, MI 49883, USA;3. Department of Entomology, The Ohio State University, 1680 Madison Avenue, Wooster, OH 44691, USA;1. Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Program, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, 110 Brooks Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27607, USA;2. North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, 1718 NC Hwy 56 West, Creedmoor, NC 27522, USA;3. Department of Entomology, North Carolina State University, Campus Box 7613, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA |
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| Abstract: | Large mammal grazing is considered an important biological process that structures many grassland plant communities. While herbivorous arthropods are also important consumers in terrestrial systems, their interaction with large mammal grazing is poorly studied. We performed a field experiment in a tallgrass prairie manipulating arthropod abundance in both bison-grazed and ungrazed areas following a prescribed burn and monitored the plant community for 15 mo. Total plant biomass was unchanged by the end of the experiment, but individual biomass of forbs and grasses was altered by our manipulations. Forb biomass in the bison-grazed/arthropod-reduced plots was two to three times higher than other treatments, while grass biomass was higher in bison-grazed plots where arthropods were unmanipulated. Grass and forb richness showed smaller responses, with a significant difference only in ungrazed areas. Our results suggest that bison grazing and arthropod herbivory work in a complementary way; bison reduce grass biomass, allowing forbs to increase, while herbivorous arthropods reduce forb biomass, allowing grasses to increase. Our study showed that removing herbivorous arthropods may have lengthened the transition from forb to grass dominance, therefore delaying the return of conditions conducive to future disturbance by fire. Therefore, we argue that arthropod herbivory, interacting with large mammal grazing, is an additional important process affecting the plant community composition and disturbance patterns in tallgrass prairies and should be investigated further in additional grassland systems. |
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