Sardine cycles, krill declines, and locust plagues: revisiting ‘wasp-waist’ food webs

• Published in: Trends in ecology & evolution (Amsterdam) Vol. 29; no. 6; pp. 309 - 316
• Main Authors: Atkinson, Angus, Hill, Simeon L., Barange, Manuel, Pakhomov, Evgeny A., Raubenheimer, David, Schmidt, Katrin, Simpson, Stephen J., Reiss, Christian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01-06-2014; Elsevier
• Subjects: Animal and plant ecology; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Animals; Applied ecology; Biological and medical sciences; Biomass; Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife; Crustacea; Euphausiacea - growth & development; Fishes - growth & development; Food Chain; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Grasshoppers - growth & development; Invertebrates; Population Growth; Sardine; Euphausiacea; Insecta; Cycle; Crustacea; Infection; Plague; Food web; Krill; Arthropoda; Bacteriosis; Invertebrata; Hymenoptera; Yersiniosis
• ISSN: 0169-5347; 1872-8383
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2014.03.011

•We compare sardines, anchovies, Antarctic krill, and desert locusts as part of ‘wasp-waist’ food webs.•We define their key traits that allow exceptional biomass densities to be supportable.•These traits help to lighten the foraging footprint and reduce top-down control of their food.•We show profitable areas for marine–terrestrial cross-fertilisation of study approaches.
‘Wasp-waist’ systems are dominated by a mid trophic-level species that is thought to exert top-down control on its food and bottom-up control on its predators. Sardines, anchovy, and Antarctic krill are suggested examples, and here we use locusts to explore whether the wasp-waist concept also applies on land. These examples also display the traits of mobile aggregations and dietary diversity, which help to reduce the foraging footprint from their large, localised biomasses. This suggests that top-down control on their food operates at local aggregation scales and not at wider scales suggested by the original definition of wasp-waist. With this modification, the wasp-waist framework can cross-fertilise marine and terrestrial approaches, revealing how seemingly disparate but economically important systems operate.