This research examines how natural communities may respond to changing temperature. Food webs are pictorial representations of species interactions, specifically feeding relationships of who eats whom. Within food web theory, the effects of predators on their prey are known as top-down effects, while the effects of resources on consumers are known as bottom-up effects. Top-down and bottom-up effects strongly influence the abundance and diversity of species in natural communities. This research will address the question, what is the effect of temperature on the relative importance of top-down and bottom-up effects in a food web? This question will be addressed experimentally using the model aquatic community found within the leaves of pitcher plants. Predator and resource levels will be manipulated at a range of temperatures and the response of populations in the food web will be used to calculate the strength of top-down and bottom-up effects. Understanding of the structure and dynamics of food webs and the species interactions within them is of vital importance to ecosystem management and conservation. Additionally, understanding the effects of temperature on species interactions and community level processes is of particular interest due to expectations of continued global warming. The proposed work puts basic research of food web regulation in the context of a changing environment.
