Abstract
Greater climatic variability and extreme climatic events are currently emerging as two of the most important facets of climate change. Predicting the effects of extreme climatic events, such as heat waves, is a major challenge because they may affect both organisms and trophic interactions, leading to complex responses at the community level. In this study, we set up a simple three-level food chain composed of a sweet pepper plant, Capsicum annuum; an aphid, Myzus persicae; and a ladybeetle, Coleomegilla maculata, to explore the consequences of simulated heat waves on organism performance, trophic interactions, and population dynamics. We found that (1) heat waves do not affect plant biomass, significantly reduce the abundance and fecundity of aphids, and slightly affect ladybeetle developmental time and biomass, (2) heat waves decrease the impact of ladybeetles on aphid populations but do not modify the effect of aphids on plant biomass, and (3) food chains including predatory ladybeetles are more resistant to heat waves than a simple plant-aphid association, with aphid abundance being less influenced by heat waves in the presence of C. maculata. Our results suggest that more biodiverse ecosystems with predators exerting a strong biotic control are likely to be less influenced by abiotic factors and then more resistant to extreme climatic events than impoverished ecosystems lacking predators. Our study emphasizes the importance of assessing the effects of climatic change on each trophic level as well as on trophic interactions to further our understanding of the stability, resilience, and resistance of ecological communities under climatic forcing.
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Claims 7
Claim · model-written summary
Simulated heat waves did not affect sweet pepper plant biomass.
- Taxon
- Capsicum annuum
Capsicum annuume0 - Treatment
- heat wavese1
- Outcome
- plant biomasse1
- Direction
- no_changeinferrede1
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“a sweet pepper plant, Capsicum annuum”
e1“heat waves do not affect plant biomass, significantly reduce the abundance and fecundity of aphids, and slightly affect ladybeetle developmental time and biomass”
Claim · model-written summary
Simulated heat waves significantly reduced the abundance and fecundity of aphids on sweet pepper.
- Taxon
- Capsicum annuumCapsicum annuume0
- Treatment
- heat wavese1
- Interactor
- Myzus persicae
Myzus persicaee4pest - Outcome
- abundance and fecundity of aphidse1
- Direction
- reducee1
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“a sweet pepper plant, Capsicum annuum”
e1“heat waves do not affect plant biomass, significantly reduce the abundance and fecundity of aphids, and slightly affect ladybeetle developmental time and biomass”
e4“an aphid, Myzus persicae”
Claim · model-written summary
Simulated heat waves slightly affected the developmental time and biomass of Coleomegilla maculata.
- Taxon
- Capsicum annuumCapsicum annuume0
- Treatment
- heat wavese1
- Interactor
- Coleomegilla maculata
Coleomegilla maculatae5biocontrol_agent - Outcome
- developmental time and biomasse1
- Qualifier
- slightly affecte1
Not reportedComparatorDirection
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“a sweet pepper plant, Capsicum annuum”
e1“heat waves do not affect plant biomass, significantly reduce the abundance and fecundity of aphids, and slightly affect ladybeetle developmental time and biomass”
e5“a ladybeetle, Coleomegilla maculata”
Claim · model-written summary
Simulated heat waves decreased the impact of ladybeetles on aphid populations.
- Taxon
- Capsicum annuumCapsicum annuume0
- Treatment
- heat wavese2
- Interactor
- Myzus persicaeMyzus persicaee4pest
- Second interactor
- Coleomegilla maculataColeomegilla maculatae5biocontrol_agent
- Outcome
- impact of ladybeetles on aphid populationse2
- Direction
- decreasee2
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“a sweet pepper plant, Capsicum annuum”
e2“heat waves decrease the impact of ladybeetles on aphid populations but do not modify the effect of aphids on plant biomass”
e4“an aphid, Myzus persicae”
e5“a ladybeetle, Coleomegilla maculata”
Claim · model-written summary
Simulated heat waves did not modify the effect of aphids on sweet pepper plant biomass.
- Taxon
- Capsicum annuumCapsicum annuume0
- Treatment
- heat wavese2
- Interactor
- Myzus persicaeMyzus persicaee4pest
- Outcome
- the effect of aphids on plant biomasse2
- Direction
- no_changeinferrede2
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“a sweet pepper plant, Capsicum annuum”
e2“heat waves decrease the impact of ladybeetles on aphid populations but do not modify the effect of aphids on plant biomass”
e4“an aphid, Myzus persicae”
Claim · model-written summary
Food chains including predatory ladybeetles were more resistant to heat waves than a simple plant-aphid association.
- Taxon
- Capsicum annuumCapsicum annuume0
- Treatment
- heat wavese3
- Interactor
- Coleomegilla maculataColeomegilla maculatae5biocontrol_agent
- Outcome
- resistant to heat wavese3
- Direction
- more resistante3
- Comparator
- simple plant-aphid associatione3
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“a sweet pepper plant, Capsicum annuum”
e3“food chains including predatory ladybeetles are more resistant to heat waves than a simple plant-aphid association, with aphid abundance being less influenced by heat waves in the presence of C. maculata”
e5“a ladybeetle, Coleomegilla maculata”
Claim · model-written summary
Aphid abundance was less influenced by heat waves in the presence of Coleomegilla maculata.
- Taxon
- Capsicum annuumCapsicum annuume0
- Treatment
- heat wavese3
- Interactor
- Myzus persicaeMyzus persicaee4pest
- Second interactor
- C. maculataColeomegilla maculatae3biocontrol_agent
- Outcome
- aphid abundancee3
- Direction
- less influencede3
- Qualifier
- in the presence of C. maculatae3
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“a sweet pepper plant, Capsicum annuum”
e3“food chains including predatory ladybeetles are more resistant to heat waves than a simple plant-aphid association, with aphid abundance being less influenced by heat waves in the presence of C. maculata”
e4“an aphid, Myzus persicae”
The same questions in other papers
heat · growth · Capsicum annuum (sweet pepper)Results differ
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- positive
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