Food Webs and Ecosystems: Linking Species Interactions to the Carbon Cycle

Abstract

All species within ecosystems contribute to regulating carbon cycling because of their functional integration into food webs. Yet carbon modeling and accounting still assumes that only plants, microbes, and invertebrate decomposer species are relevant to the carbon cycle. Our multifaceted review develops a case for considering a wider range of species, especially herbivorous and carnivorous wild animals. Animal control over carbon cycling is shaped by the animals’ stoichiometric needs and functional traits in relation to the stoichiometry and functional traits of their resources. Quantitative synthesis reveals that failing to consider these mechanisms can lead to serious inaccuracies in the carbon budget. Newer carbon-cycle models that consider food-web structure based on organismal functional traits and stoichiometry can offer mechanistically informed predictions about the magnitudes of animal effects that will help guide new empirical research aimed at developing a coherent understanding of the interactions and importance of all species within food webs.