Dynamic feedbacks among tree functional traits, termite populations and deadwood turnover

1. Changes in the composition of plant functional traits may affect ecosystem processes through influencing trophic interactions. Bottom-up control by plant species through food availability to animals may vary with time. However, such dynamics and their consequences for deadwood turnover are poorly known for detrital food webs.

2. We introduce a dynamic conceptual model of the feedback of (deadwood-feeding) termite populations, tree functional traits and deadwood decomposition. We hypothesized that tree functional diversity (in terms of a wood resource economic spectrum, WES) supports the sustenance of termite populations via complementary food supplied through time, as deadwood varies in traits both initially between species and because of different decomposition rates. Simultaneously, the consumption of deadwood by termites was hypothesized to sustain deadwood turnover in a functionally diverse forest by the same temporal mechanism of changing wood quality of multiple species over...