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The Impact of Cormorants on Plant–Arthropod Food Webs on Their Nesting Islands

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Abstract

This study investigated the effects of cormorant colonies on plant–arthropod island food webs, the consequences of nutrient-rich runoff on marine communities, and feedback loops from marine to terrestrial ecosystems. Terrestrial plant responses were as expected, with the highest plant biomass on islands with low nest density and the highest nitrogen (N) content on islands with high nest density. In contrast to our hypothesis, we found no uniform density response across guilds. Among herbivores, the variable responses may depend on the relative importance of plant quality or quantity. As expected, nutrient-rich runoff entered water bodies surrounding cormorant nesting islands, but only at high nest density, and increased the density of emerging insects. This created a potential feed-back loop to spiders (major terrestrial predators), where stable isotope analyses suggested great use of chironomids. Contrary to our expectation, this potential feed-back did not result in the highest spider density on islands with a high cormorant nest density. Web spiders showed no changes in density on active cormorant islands, and lycosids were actually less abundant on active cormorant islands compared to reference islands. The variable response of spiders despite increased dipteran densities, and also in other consumer groups, may be due to direct negative effects of cormorants on soil chemistry, vegetation cover, and other density regulating forces (for example, top–down forces) not studied here. This study highlights the importance of including processes in the surrounding marine ecosystem to understand the impacts of seabirds on the food web structures of their nesting islands.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of H. Axemar, M. Enskog, B. Jerling, E. Jerling, and S. Jerling—in the field and in the lab; H.-E. Wanntorp and C.-C Coulianos for help in identifying beetle and bug species; and T. Primack and two anonymous reviewers for providing helpful suggestions. Isotopic ratios were measured in the UC Davis Stable Isotope facility, California, USA. Funding was provided by the Swedish Research Council Formas (to PAH).

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  1. Department of Botany, University of Stockholm, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    Gundula S. Kolb, Lenn Jerling & Peter A. Hambäck

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  1. Gundula S. Kolb
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  2. Lenn Jerling
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Correspondence to Gundula S. Kolb.

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GK was involved in all parts of the study, JE was involved in the field parts, PAH was involved in the design and analysis of the study and in the writing of the text.

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Kolb, G.S., Jerling, L. & Hambäck, P.A. The Impact of Cormorants on Plant–Arthropod Food Webs on Their Nesting Islands. Ecosystems 13, 353–366 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-010-9323-8

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