Direct and indirect trophic effects of predator depletion on basal trophic levels

Project Title: Direct and indirect trophic effects of predator depletion on basal trophic levels

Date: 2016

Principal Investigator(s): Chen, H., Hagerty, S., Crotty, S.M., & Bertness, M.D.

Abstract: Human population growth and development have heavily degraded coastal ecosystems with cascading impacts across multiple trophic levels. Understanding both the direct and indirect trophic effects of human activities is important for coastal conservation. In New England, recreational overfishing has triggered a regional trophic cascade. Predator depletion releases the herbivorous purple marsh crab from consumer control and leads to overgrazing of marsh cordgrass and salt marsh die‐off. Read full text…Ecology, 97(2), 338-346. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/15-0900.1/full