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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Global Patterns In The Impact Of Marine Herbivores On Benthic Primary Producers, Alistair G.B. Poore, Alexandra H. Campbell, Ross Coleman, Graham J. Edgar, Veijo Jormalainen, Pamela L. Reynolds, Erik E. Sotka, John J. Stachowicz, Richard Taylor, Mathew A. Vanderklift, J. Emmett Duffy
Global Patterns In The Impact Of Marine Herbivores On Benthic Primary Producers, Alistair G.B. Poore, Alexandra H. Campbell, Ross Coleman, Graham J. Edgar, Veijo Jormalainen, Pamela L. Reynolds, Erik E. Sotka, John J. Stachowicz, Richard Taylor, Mathew A. Vanderklift, J. Emmett Duffy
VIMS Articles
Despite the importance of consumers in structuring communities, and the widespread assumption that consumption is strongest at low latitudes, empirical tests for global scale patterns in the magnitude of consumer impacts are limited. In marine systems, the long tradition of experimentally excluding herbivores in their natural environments allows consumer impacts to be quantified on global scales using consistent methodology. We present a quantitative synthesis of 613 marine herbivore exclusion experiments to test the influence of consumer traits, producer traits and the environment on the strength of herbivore impacts on benthic producers. Across the globe, marine herbivores profoundly reduced producer abundance …