I describe an experimental study of the importance of food limitation and predation at three trophic levels in a terrestrial food web. The study system was the herb layer vegetation - arthropod - insectivorous bird food chain in the boreal forest near Kluane Lake, southwestern Yukon. Since little is known about boreal bird communities, I conducted a descriptive study of the community of passerine and piciform birds at Kluane in addition to the main study. Variable circular plot point counts were used to estimate bird populations in 1987 through 1990. Species' habitat preferences, use of foraging substrates and diets were studied in 1988 and 1989. Population densities, species richness and evenness were all low. Yellow-rumped warblers (Dendroica coronata) and dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) dominated the community. Common species differed markedly in their habitat preferences, and showed generally low overlaps in their use of foraging substrates. There was little evidence of dietary specialization. There was rather little spatial variation in the community, and species composition and total density remained approximately the same through time. However, there were large fluctuations in some species' populations between 1987 and 1989.
The experimental study was conducted at two scales. Chemical fertilizer was applied to two 570m x 570m areas in 1987, 1988 and 1989. I compared arthropod populations, bird populations and bird reproductive performance in these areas with those in two control areas. Two experiments using 5m x 5m plots were performed in 1988 to examine the effects of fertilization on plants and arthropods in more detail, and to study the responses of these trophic levels to the exclusion of passerine birds and mammalian herbivores. All three trophic levels responded positively to
fertilization, but the results were variable and there were no very large increases in biomass or population size. Dark-eyed juncos nested one week earlier in fertilized areas, which may have enhanced their reproductive success. Passerine exclusion did not increase arthropod biomass, but exclusion of mammalian herbivores increased plant biomass. "Bottom-up" limitation by food appears to dominate this system, but "top-down" limitation also operates at at least one level. More work is needed to fully understand how the system functions. / Science, Faculty of / Zoology, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/28985 |
| Date | January 1990 |
| Creators | Folkard, Nicholas Francis Goring |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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