A project undertaken at The University of New South Wales, and supervised by Prof Michael Letnic.
Food webs can be conceptualized as being powered by energy derived from living and dead vegetation, respectively. Most food web research has focused on “green” food webs involving living, photosynthetic vegetation, herbivores and their predators . However, food webs stemming from living and dead vegetation, respectively, are inextricably linked. This is because if they are not eaten by herbivores the tissues of living plants eventually senesce and provide energy for “brown” food webs that comprise dead vegetation, detritivores and their predators.
Brown food webs may be particularly important for desert ecosystems during dry periods when photosynthetic output is low and much of the energy available for consumers is held in dead plant matter. Suppression of apex predators has the potential to disrupt the functioning of brown food webs by facilitating the irruption of herbivores whose grazing can prevent the formation of senescent plant material.
We will test the hypothesis that removal/exclusion of dingoes leads to suppressed activity of termites which in turn limits litter breakdown and the diets and abundances of insectivores. The findings will prompt a new way of thinking about the functioning of arid ecosystems by showing how apex predators’ impacts on ecosystems extend to the brown food web.
The aim of this proposal is to investigate the impacts that removal of dingoes has on the brown food web in the Strzelecki Desert.