Life Sciences Commons^™

Quantity And Quality: Unifying Food Web And Ecosystem Perspectives On The Role Of Resource Subsidies In Freshwaters, Amy Marcarelli, Colden V. Baxter, Madeleine Mineau, Robert O. Hall Jr.

Amy Marcarelli

Although the study of resource subsidies has emerged as a key topic in both ecosystem and food web ecology, the dialogue over their role has been limited by separate approaches that emphasize either subsidy quantity or quality. Considering quantity and quality together may provide a simple, but previously unexplored, framework for identifying the mechanisms that govern the importance of subsidies for recipient food webs and ecosystems. Using a literature review of >90 studies of open-water metabolism in lakes and streams, we show that high-flux, low-quality subsidies can drive freshwater ecosystem dynamics. Because most of these ecosystems are net heterotrophic, allochthonous …