Fig. 2: Standing stock of predators and detritivores, and pyramid shape, change under rainfall frequency and hydrological stability.

Influence of rainfall frequency (k) on a total predator standing stock (top + mesopredators), b detritivore standing stock, and d total predator:detritivore mass ratio (PDMR; pyramid shape). Detritivore biomass was also influenced by habitat size and hydrology (c). Horizontal bars a, d denote mean values; different letters indicate statistically significant differences (Tukey contrasts, α = 0.05). In c, habitat size (bromeliad volume) is represented by circles of varying sizes. In d, PDMR > 1 (threshold in red dashed line) indicates bromeliads with inverted trophic pyramids. k equals to 1 represents typical average values of rainfall frequency; values lower and higher than 1 represent deviance from typical values, and characterize extreme events. Circle colors indicate sites of the experiment; colors match with the sites plotted in Fig. 1a. Jitter function was used to add random noise to data in order to prevent overplotting.