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Data from: Classical biological control and apparent competition: evaluating a waterhyacinth invaded community module

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posted on 2024-02-13, 13:50 authored by Philip Tipping, Melissa C. Smith, Ellen C. Lake, Carey R. Minteer, Ashley B. C. Goode, Jeremiah R. Foley, Lyn A. Gettys

The scope and complexity of interactions within community food webs necessitates their simplification to a community module scale for conducting empirical studies. An outdoor mesocosm study in the USA quantified the strengths of direct and indirect interactions between two herbivore congeners that fed on two aquatic plant species while sharing a parasitoid. Kalopolynema ema (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) is a stenophagous native egg parasitoid that attacks the hemipteran species in this study, Megamelus davisi (Hemiptera: Delphacidae), a native herbivore that feeds on the native aquatic species Nuphar advena, and the introduced biological control agent Megamelus scutellaris (Hemiptera: Delphacidae) that feeds on the non-native aquatic species waterhyacinth, Pontederia crassipes. The presence of M. scutellaris did not significantly increase parasitism of M. davisi indicating that apparent competition was not a factor in this community module. There was no evidence of any trophic cascades caused by these interactions based on the relative growth rates of biomass and leaf area for both plant species. The relative strengths of interactions varied with herbivore densities suggesting that should negative indirect effects occur they would likely be transient and closely linked to population dynamics as influenced by abiotic factors like temperature. The primary negative interaction was biotic resistance to Megamelus scutellaris from attack by Kalopolynema ema. Despite identifying potential negative interactions using path analysis, we saw no apparent competition following the insertion of a weed biological control agent into a community that contains an ecological analog.


Resources in this dataset:

  • Resource Title: Indirect Effects SS mesocosm .

    File Name: MS Indirect Data Commons version.xlsx

    Resource Description: Raw data from MS Indirect study in mesocosms. NA = Nuphar advena, WH = Pontederia crassipes, MD = Megamelus davisi, MS = M. scutellaris., KE = Kalopolynema ema, BGBM = below ground biomass.

Funding

USDA-NIFA: 2016-67013-24860

History

Data contact name

Tipping, Philip

Data contact email

philip.tipping@ars.usda.gov

Publisher

Ag Data Commons

Theme

  • Not specified

ISO Topic Category

  • biota
  • environment
  • inlandWaters

National Agricultural Library Thesaurus terms

biological control; Eichhornia crassipes; food webs; empirical research; United States; herbivores; aquatic plants; parasitoids; Mymaridae; eggs; Megamelus; Nuphar; biological control agents; insect control; introduced species; parasitism; biomass; leaf area; population dynamics; environmental factors; temperature; path analysis; weeds; weed control; ecological competition

OMB Bureau Code

  • 005:18 - Agricultural Research Service

OMB Program Code

  • 005:040 - National Research

Primary article PubAg Handle

Pending citation

  • No

Public Access Level

  • Public

Preferred dataset citation

Tipping, Philip; Smith, Melissa C.; Lake, Ellen C.; Minteer, Carey R.; Goode, Ashley B. C.; Foley, Jeremiah R.; Gettys, Lyn A. (2020). Data from: Classical biological control and apparent competition: evaluating a waterhyacinth invaded community module. Ag Data Commons. https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1517659