Warming strengthens food web effects of predator phenotypic variation

Intraspecific variation modifies ecological processes and ecosystem functioning. Still, we know relatively little of how the nature and strength of ecosystem effects caused by intraspecific variation may interact with climate change.
We conducted a mesocosm experiment to test if, and to what extent, ocean warming modifies the ecological impacts of intraspecific variation in a predatory fish. The mesocosms consisted of a simplified coastal food web with threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) as the top predator, from a population where two stickleback phenotypes with either complete or incomplete lateral armour plating coexist and display differentiated predation behavior: The completely plated phenotype often feeds more on invertebrate herbivores compared to the incompletely plated phenotype.
Presence of stickleback reduced biomass of arthropod shredders (crustaceans, insect larvae). Warming (+4 °C) strengthened this predation, releasing benthic primary producers (diatoms) from..., , # Warming strengthens food web effects of predator phenotypic variation

Dataset DOI: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kprr4xhhn

Salo_et_al_predation.csv
Salo_et_al_plate_phenotypes.csv
Salo_et_al_stomach_contents.csv

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Data for Salo_et_al_predation.csv include:

temperature: temperature treatment in the study (ambient, high)
predation: presence or absence of top predators in the mesocosm (fish, no fish)
plate_phenotypes: three-spine stickleback plate phenotype (completely plated, incompletely plated, both, no_fish)
waterbath: waterbath id for nested analyses
shredder_biomass: the biomass (g dw) of shredders in the mesocosm
shredder_survival: the survival of shredders in the mesocosm
shredder_recruitment: the recruitment of shredders to the mesocosm
gastropod_biomass: the biomass (g dw) of gastropods in the mesocosm
theodoxus_eggs: the biomass (g dw) of Theodoxus fluviatilis eggs in the mesocosm
diatom_biomass: t...,