000163730 001__ 163730 000163730 005__ 20251030150827.0 000163730 0247_ $$2doi$$a10.1002/ece3.72111 000163730 0248_ $$2sideral$$a145791 000163730 037__ $$aART-2025-145791 000163730 041__ $$aeng 000163730 100__ $$aKempel, Anne 000163730 245__ $$aThe Bug‐Network (<scp>BugNet</scp>): A Global Experimental Network Testing the Effects of Invertebrate Herbivores and Fungal Pathogens on Plant Communities and Ecosystem Function in Open Ecosystems 000163730 260__ $$c2025 000163730 5060_ $$aAccess copy available to the general public$$fUnrestricted 000163730 5203_ $$aPlants are consumed by a variety of organisms, including herbivores and pathogens, which significantly impact plant biomass, diversity, community composition, and ecosystem functioning. While the impacts of vertebrate herbivores are well established, the effects of consumer groups such as insect herbivores, mollusks, and fungal pathogens on plant communities are less clear and remain understudied in many systems. Existing evidence of how they affect plant biomass, diversity, and community composition is mixed, and most studies have focused on individual consumer groups in isolation. However, different consumer groups interact with each other, directly or indirectly, in ways that alter their impacts on plants, and the consequences of these interactions for plant community structure and ecosystem function remain understudied. Further, consumer impacts vary across environmental gradients and likely depend on abiotic conditions such as climate, soil type, or elevation, and biotic conditions such as plant productivity, diversity, or community composition. Existing studies testing the impacts of invertebrate herbivores and fungal pathogens on plant communities differ substantially in methodology, making generalities across large scales difficult. This calls for experimental approaches that implement standardized protocols across many sites. Here, we introduce and report on the methodology of a novel global research network, The Bug‐Network (BugNet), that implements standardized consumer‐reduction experiments across 5 continents and 18 countries in diverse, herbaceous‐ or shrub‐dominated ecosystems to investigate: (1) the influence of fungal pathogens, insect herbivores, and mollusks on plant diversity and ecosystem functioning, (2) interactions among these consumer groups, and (3) the abiotic and biotic drivers of context‐dependent consumer impacts. BugNet aims to advance a predictive understanding of plant‐consumer interactions in order to test fundamental ecological hypotheses and improve predictions of global change impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. 000163730 540__ $$9info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess$$aby$$uhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.es 000163730 655_4 $$ainfo:eu-repo/semantics/article$$vinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 000163730 700__ $$aAdamidis, George C. 000163730 700__ $$0(orcid)0000-0002-5038-5338$$aAnadón, José D. 000163730 700__ $$aAtkinson, Joe 000163730 700__ $$aAuge, Harald 000163730 700__ $$aAvtzis, Dimitrios 000163730 700__ $$aBachelot, Benedicte 000163730 700__ $$aBashirzadeh, Maral 000163730 700__ $$aBota, Julien L. 000163730 700__ $$aClassen, Aimee 000163730 700__ $$aConstantinou, Ioannis 000163730 700__ $$aCrawley, Mick 000163730 700__ $$ade Bellis, Tonia 000163730 700__ $$aDostal, Petr 000163730 700__ $$aEbeling, Anne 000163730 700__ $$aEisenhauer, Nico 000163730 700__ $$aEldridge, David J. 000163730 700__ $$aEncina, Gustavo 000163730 700__ $$aEstrada, Catalina 000163730 700__ $$aEveringham, Susan 000163730 700__ $$aFanin, Nicolas 000163730 700__ $$aFeng, Yanhao 000163730 700__ $$aGaspar, Mario 000163730 700__ $$aGooriah, Leana 000163730 700__ $$aGraff, Pamela 000163730 700__ $$aMontalván, Elizabeth Gusmán 000163730 700__ $$aMontalván, Pamela Gusmán 000163730 700__ $$aHartke, Tamara R. 000163730 700__ $$aHuang, Linjia 000163730 700__ $$aJochum, Malte 000163730 700__ $$aKaljund, Karin 000163730 700__ $$aKarmiris, Ilias 000163730 700__ $$aKoorem, Kadri 000163730 700__ $$aKorell, Lotte 000163730 700__ $$aLaine, Anna-Liisa 000163730 700__ $$ale Provost, Gaëtane 000163730 700__ $$aLessard, Jean-Philippe 000163730 700__ $$aLiu, Mu 000163730 700__ $$aLiu, Xiang 000163730 700__ $$aLiu, Yanjie 000163730 700__ $$aLlancabure, Juan 000163730 700__ $$aLoïez, Sidonie 000163730 700__ $$aLoydi, Alejandro 000163730 700__ $$aMarrero, Hugo 000163730 700__ $$aGockel, Shelby 000163730 700__ $$aMontoya, Adrián 000163730 700__ $$aMünzbergová, Zuzana 000163730 700__ $$aNiu, Yujie 000163730 700__ $$aOtt, David 000163730 700__ $$aOyarzabal, Mariano 000163730 700__ $$aPanitsa, Maria 000163730 700__ $$aPapatheodorou, Effimia 000163730 700__ $$aPiper, Frida I. 000163730 700__ $$aPüssa, Kersti 000163730 700__ $$aRand, Karin 000163730 700__ $$aSaiz, Hugo$$uUniversidad de Zaragoza 000163730 700__ $$aSanders, Nathan J. 000163730 700__ $$aSchädler, Martin 000163730 700__ $$aScherber, Christoph 000163730 700__ $$aSemchenko, Marina 000163730 700__ $$aSepp, Siim-Kaarel 000163730 700__ $$aShah, Manzoor Ahmad 000163730 700__ $$aShaheen, Ishrat 000163730 700__ $$aStein, Claudia 000163730 700__ $$aStewart, Jana 000163730 700__ $$aTang, Zhuangsheng 000163730 700__ $$aTschan, Georg 000163730 700__ $$avan Nouhuys, Saskya 000163730 700__ $$aVandegehuchte, Martijn L. 000163730 700__ $$aVernon, Millie 000163730 700__ $$aV. R., Sonali 000163730 700__ $$aWang, Jianyong 000163730 700__ $$aXiao, Yao 000163730 700__ $$aXystrakis, Fotios 000163730 700__ $$aYang, Jie 000163730 700__ $$aYang, Siwei 000163730 700__ $$aZografou, Konstantina 000163730 700__ $$aAllan, Eric 000163730 7102_ $$15011$$2220$$aUniversidad de Zaragoza$$bDpto. CC.Agrar.y Medio Natural$$cÁrea Ecología 000163730 773__ $$g15, 10 (2025), e72111 [16 pp.]$$pEcology and evolution$$tEcology and Evolution$$x2045-7758 000163730 8564_ $$s1368745$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/163730/files/texto_completo.pdf$$yVersión publicada 000163730 8564_ $$s2764145$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/163730/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon$$xicon$$yVersión publicada 000163730 909CO $$ooai:zaguan.unizar.es:163730$$particulos$$pdriver 000163730 951__ $$a2025-10-30-14:39:51 000163730 980__ $$aARTICLE