This study examines the interactions among organisms occupying multiple levels in deciduous forest-floor food webs. The proposal focuses on interactions among taxonomically-divergent forest floor predators (salamanders, centipedes, spiders and beetles) using a combination of field and laboratory experiments. Laboratory experiments will test for interactions among predators, particularly intraguild predation, aggression and interspecific territoriality. Predator-removal plots have been established in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (Ohio) to test the hypothesis that removal of forest-floor predators will have effects on other predators, and lower levels within the food chain, including detritivores, fungi, and rate of leaf litter decomposition.
Forest-floor food webs are important in global nutrient cycling and the formation of healthy soils. Knowledge of interactions among organisms that provide such ecosystem services is valuable because, in a changing environment, it is uncertain which species will persist in the face of human habitat alteration. For example, the current amphibian decline is expected to claim the majority of tropical frog species in our lifetimes, but it is largely unknown what role these species play in tropical ecosystems. Likewise, little is known about functional roles that amphibians and their guild members play in temperate webs.
