Contribution of different predator guilds to tritrophic interactions along ecological clines

Abstract

The strengths of interactions between plants, herbivores, and predators are predicted to relax with elevation. Despite the fundamental role predators play in tritrophic interactions, high-resolution experimental evidence describing predation across habitat gradients is still scarce in the literature and varies by predator. With this opinion paper, we look at how tritrophic strength of systems including different vertebrate and invertebrate predator guilds changes with elevation. Specifically, we focus on how birds, ants, parasitoids, and nematodes exert top-down pressure as predators and propose ways, in which each group could be better understood through elevational gradient studies. We hope to enrich future perspectives for disentangling the different biotic and abiotic factors underlying predator-mediated trophic interactions in a diversity of habitats.