Temperature Affects Chemical Defense in a Mite-Beetle Predator-Prey System
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Temperature Affects Chemical Defense in a Mite-Beetle Predator-Prey System Christoph Merkel 1 & Michael Heethoff 1 & Adrian Brückner 2 Received: 29 June 2020 / Revised: 31 July 2020 / Accepted: 24 August 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Temperature influences all biochemical and biophysiological processes within an organism. By extension, it also affects those ecological interactions that are mediated by gland-produced chemical compounds, such as reservoir-based chemical defense. Herein, we investigate how environmental temperature affects the regeneration of defensive secretions and influences the efficacy of chemical defense in a model predator-prey system: the oribatid mite Archegozetes longisetosus and the predaceous rove beetle Stenus juno. Through a combination of chemical analyses, non-linear regression modeling and theoretical simulations we show that the amount of defensive secretion responded to temperature in a unimodal optimum curve: the regeneration rate followed a positive, linear relationship up to 35 °C, but rapidly broke down beyond this temperature (“tipping point” effect). Using functional response simulations, there is an initially positive dampening effect on the predation rate when regeneration is optimal, but at higher temperatures chemical defense does not counteract the previously described effects of elevated predatory pressure. In a larger context, our results demonstrate the need to integrate relevant environmental factors in predator-prey modeling approaches. Keywords Trophic interactions . Temperature dependence . Eco-physiology . Oribatid mites . Archegozetes longisetosus
Introduction Semiochemicals produced by and released from exocrine glands are important for determining inter- and intraspecific interactions across the animal tree of life (Brückner and Parker 2020). Biosynthesis of these compounds can be influenced by many factors, including developmental stage or age, sex, the presence or absence of symbionts, and diet (e.g., Florez et al. 2015; Jones et al. 1986; Symonds and Elgar 2008). Among these many chemicals with a vast diversity of purposes, defensive chemicals are perhaps the simplest to interpret: they are released by an organism to counter an Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-020-01212-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Adrian Brückner [email protected] 1
Ecological Networks, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Schnittspahnstraße 3, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany
2
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
antagonist. In particular, predator defense using compounds produced by exocrine glands can serve as models for understanding general gland functionality in the context of ecophysiology. Temperature is a pivotal factor influencing all biochemical and biophysical processes of organisms (Schulte 2015). Among e
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