PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Benoit Gauzens
AU  - Benjamin Rosenbaum
AU  - Gregor Kalinkat
AU  - Thomas Boy
AU  - Malte Jochum
AU  - Susanne Kortsch
AU  - Eoin J. O’Gorman
AU  - Ulrich Brose
TI  - Adaptive foraging behaviour increases vulnerability to climate change
AID  - 10.1101/2021.05.05.442768
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.05.05.442768
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/07/07/2021.05.05.442768.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/07/07/2021.05.05.442768.full
AB  - Adaptative foraging behaviour should promote species coexistence and biodiversity under climate change as consumers are expected to maximise their energy intake, according to principles of optimal foraging theory. We test these assumptions using a unique dataset comprising (1) 22,185 stomach contents of fish species across functional groups and feeding strategies and (2) prey availability in the environment over 12 years. We explore how foraging behavior responds to variance in ecosystem productivity and temperature. Our results show that foraging shifts from trait-dependent prey selectivity to simple density dependence in warmer and more productive environments. Contrary to classical assumptions, we show that this behavioural change leads to lower consumption efficiency as species shift away from their optimal trophic niche. Dynamic food-web modeling demonstrates that this behavioral response to warming could undermine species persistence and biodiversity. By integrating empirical adaptive foraging behavior into dynamic models, our study reveals higher risk profiles for ecosystems under global warming.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.