Data from: Combined effects of night warming and light pollution on predator-prey interactions

Interactions between multiple anthropogenic environmental changes can drive non-additive effects in ecological systems, and the non-additive effects can in turn be amplified or dampened by spatial covariation among environmental changes. We investigated the combined effects of night-time warming and light pollution on pea aphids and two predatory ladybeetle species. As expected, neither night-time warming nor light pollution changed the suppression of aphids by the ladybeetle species that forages effectively in darkness. However, for the more-visual predator, warming and light had non-additive effects in which together they caused much lower aphid abundances. These results are particularly relevant for agriculture near urban areas that experience both light pollution and warming from urban heat islands. Because warming and light pollution can have non-additive effects, predicting their possible combined consequences over broad spatial scales requires knowing how they co-occur. We found that night-time temperature change since 1949 covaried positively with light pollution, which has the potential to increase their non-additive effects on pea aphid control by 70% in US alfalfa. Our results highlight the importance of non-additive effects of multiple environmental factors on species and food webs, especially when these factors co-occur.多重人为环境变化之间的交互作用可在生态系统中引发非加和效应（non-additive effects），而环境变化间的空间共变又可反过来放大或削弱这类非加和效应。本研究探究了夜间增温与光污染对豌豆蚜（pea aphid）以及两种捕食性瓢虫物种的联合影响。正如预期，夜间增温和光污染均未改变那种可在黑暗中高效觅食的瓢虫物种对蚜虫的控害作用。但对于视觉依赖性更强的捕食者而言，增温与光照产生了非加和效应：二者共同作用下蚜虫种群丰度大幅降低。上述研究结果对同时面临光污染与城市热岛增温效应的城郊农业而言尤为重要。由于增温与光污染可产生非加和效应，因此要在大空间尺度上预测二者联合作用的潜在后果，就需要明确它们的共同发生模式。本研究发现，1949年以来的夜间温度变化与光污染呈正相关，这使得二者对豌豆蚜控害的非加和效应在美国紫花苜蓿田中有可能提升70%。本研究结果凸显了多重环境因素对物种与食物网的非加和效应的重要性，尤其是当这些因素共同发生作用时。