Community Physiological Ecology

The effects of animal homeostatic function on ecological interactions have not been well-integrated into community ecology. Animals mediate environmental change and stressors through homeostatic shifts in physiology and behavior, which likely shape ecological interactions and plant communities. Animal responses to stressors can alter their habitat use, selective foraging, and stoichiometry, which can in turn affect trophic interactions, plant growth, reproduction, and dispersal. Here, we describe a community physiological ecology framework that integrates classical ecological theory and emerging empirical approaches to test how animal homeostatic responses to environmental change mediate ecological interactions and shape communities. Interdisciplinary approaches could provide essential data to characterize and forecast community responses to rapid global environmental change. Homeostatic control via physiology mediates habitat use, foraging behavior, prey selection, and even risk-taking behaviors in all animals. Changes in physiology or behavior of individual animals likely cause ecological cascades detectable in the structure of communities and ecosystem processes. Our capacity to link individual physiology and behavior to community dynamics has often been hampered by technological limitations. Rapidly emerging methods and technologies (e.g., pharmacological implants that manipulate homeostatic control in free-ranging animals, high-resolution tracking technology, and stable isotope tracers capable of tracking plant materials through food webs) make new integrative studies possible that link individual processes to large scale ecological dynamics in a changing world.