Effects of top scavenger declines on soil carbon & forest function
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Scavengers and microorganisms play a critical role in returning nutrients to the soil, where they become available for plant uptake and growth. However, the impact of carrion on nutrient cycling, food web dynamics, and ecosystem carbon balance is not well understood. Tasmanian devils are an apex scavenger and one of a few carnivores worldwide that consume bones making them an ideal model species. The emergence of a highly transmissible cancer (devil facial tumor disease) has dramatically reduced devil population sizes and now threatens this iconic species with extinction.
Our research grow is using integrated experimental and modeling approaches to (1) determine how variation in Tasmanian devil densities affects local soil biogeochemistry; (2) investigate how carrion and scavenging networks induce shifts in the metabolic efficiency of microbial communities and decomposition rates of new plant litter inputs; and (3) test the scale at which scavenging by devils is detectable.
