Temperature and nutrient conditions modify the effects of phenological shifts in predator–prey communities

Although there is mounting evidence indicating that the relative timing of predator and prey phenologies determines the outcome of trophic interactions, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of how the environmental context (e.g., abiotic conditions) influences this relationship. Environmental conditions not only frequently drive shifts in phenologies, but they can also affect the very same processes that mediate the effects of phenological shifts on species interactions. Therefore, identifying how environmental conditions shape the effects of phenological shifts is key to predicting community dynamics across a heterogeneous landscape and how they will change with ongoing climate change in the future. Here I tested how environmental conditions shape the effects of phenological shifts by experimentally manipulating temperature, nutrient availability, and relative phenologies in two predator–prey freshwater systems (mole salamander–bronze frog vs. dragonfly larvae–leopard frog). This allowed me to (1) isolate the effects of phenological shifts and different environmental conditions; (2) determine how they interact; and (3) evaluate how consistent these patterns are across different species and environments. I found that delaying prey arrival dramatically increased predation rates, but these effects were contingent on environmental conditions and the predator system. Although nutrient addition and warming both significantly enhanced the effect of arrival time, their effect was qualitatively different across systems: Nutrient addition enhanced the positive effect of early arrival in the dragonfly–leopard frog system, whereas warming enhanced the negative effect of arriving late in the salamander–bronze frog system. Predator responses varied qualitatively across predator–prey systems. Only in the system with a strong gape limitation were predators (salamanders) significantly affected by prey arrival time and this effect varied with environmental context. Correlations between predator and prey demographic rates suggest that this was driven by shifts in initial predator–prey size ratios and a positive feedback between size‐specific predation rates and predator growth rates. These results highlight the importance of accounting for temporal and spatial correlations of local environmental conditions and gape limitation when predicting the effects of phenological shifts and climate change on predator–prey systems.