Natural restoration of the species-area relation for a lizard after a hurricane.

We document the decimation and recovery of the commonest lizard species, Anolis sagrei, on 66 islands in the Bahamas that were directly hit by Hurricane Floyd in September 1999. Before the hurricane, an island's area was a better predictor of the occurrence of A. sagrei than was its altitude. Immediately after, altitude was a better predictor: Apparently all lizards on islands lower than about 3 meters maximum elevation perished in the storm surge. After about 1 year, area again became the better predictor. By 19 months after the hurricane, A. sagrei populations occurred on 88% of the islands they formerly occupied. Recovery occurred via overwater colonization and propagation from eggs that survived inundation, mechanisms that were enhanced by larger island area. Thus, natural processes first destroyed and then quickly restored a highly regular species-area distribution.

Predators increase the risk of catastrophic extinction of prey populations.

There has been considerable research on both top-down effects and on disturbances in ecological communities; however, the interaction between the two, when the disturbance is catastrophic, has rarely been examined. Predators may increase the probability of prey extinction resulting from a catastrophic disturbance both by reducing prey population size and by changing ecological traits of prey individuals such as habitat characteristics in a way that increases the vulnerability of prey species to extinction. We show that a major hurricane in the Bahamas led to the extinction of lizard populations on most islands onto which a predator had been experimentally introduced, whereas no populations became extinct on control islands. Before the hurricane, the predator had reduced prey populations to about half of those on control islands. Two months after the hurricane, we found only recently hatched individuals--apparently lizards survived the inundating storm surge only as eggs. On predator-introduction islands, those hatchling populations were a smaller fraction of pre-hurricane populations than on control islands. Egg survival allowed rapid recovery of prey populations to pre-hurricane levels on all control islands but on only a third of predator-introduction islands--the other two-thirds lost their prey populations. Thus climatic disturbance compounded by predation brought prey populations to extinction.

Effect of predators and area on invasion: an experiment with island spiders.

To assay the effect of area and predators on invasion success, spiders were introduced onto islands that were large, with lizard predators; large, without lizard predators; or small, without lizard predators. Short-term survival was greater on islands without than with predators; area had no effect. Spiders initially increased substantially on both groups of islands without lizards, but after 5 years they nearly died off on small islands while persisting on most large islands; populations in the presence of predators never increased above initial sizes. Results show how predators as well as area are important in determining invasion success.

Lizards reduce food consumption by spiders: mechanisms and consequences.

To determine the effect of lizards on webspider populations, we conducted a long-term field experiment in the Bahamas. Numbers of spider individuals were about 3 times higher in lizard-removal enclosures than in control enclosures with natural densities of lizards. Dietary analyses showed that lizards ate spiders and that lizard and spider diets overlapped substantially. Lizards reduced biomass of prey consumed by spiders; details indicated that they reduced biomass of large (> 4 mm) prey consumed by spiders more than biomass of small (≤4 mm) prey. Similarly, lizards reduced biomass of large aerial arthropods caught in sticky traps but not biomass of small aerial arthropods. We found no evidence that the lizard effect on prey consumption by spiders was caused by a spatial shift from areas with high aerial arthropod abundance to areas with low aerial arthropod abundance. Lizards reduced adult female cephalothorax width and fecundity of spiders. In a separate experiment, food-supplemented spiders were more fecund than control spiders. This study indicates that the interaction between lizards and spiders includes both predation and competition for food.

Effect of lizards on spider populations: manipulative reconstruction of a natural experiment.

Which species affect one another, how intensely, and the mechanisms of those effects are crucial data for understanding how ecological communities work. Tropical islands without lizards, the major top predators, have about ten times as dense web spider populations as those with lizards; processes responsible for this effect were experimentally simulated by removing lizards from randomly selected mainland plots. Spider densities in removal plots averaged 2.5 times as high as controls. Spider survival, prey abundance, and prey consumption were all negatively affected by lizards. Contrary to most studies, predator removal caused an increase in the number of spider species.