A fundamental goal in ecology is understanding species interactions, such as predation and interspecific competition. Important insight into these processes is gained from examining systems where they have been relaxed. Reduction in these types of antagonistic interactions may lead to ecological release, a suite of changes that can include density compensation, higher intraspecific variation, and broader niche breadth. In the gypsum dune fields of White Sands, New Mexico, three species of lizards - Aspidoscelis inornata, Holbrookia maculata and Sceloporus cowlesi - have escaped most of their predators and interspecific competitors. White Sands lizards show multiple markers of ecological release. In this dissertation, I consider the community scale implications of this ecological release. In Chapter 2, I explore the relationship between trophic niche and community structure across an ecological gradient from White Sands to the surrounding desert scrub. I used stable isotopes to quantify three trophic niche metrics, including population niche width, degree of individual specialization and trophic position. There was substantial variation in all niche metrics across populations in all lizard species but broad patterns were generally similar between species and across years. Resource diversity, inter and intraspecific competition and predation all intersected to shape trophic niche. Individual specialization and population niche width were surprisingly decoupled, with specialization highest in low diversity habitats and population niche width highest at intermediate diversity. In Chapter 3 I tested for trophic cascades in White Sands. Intermediate predators like lizards should exert stronger trophic interactions after ecological release. However, prevailing theory predicts that top down control is relatively unimportant in desert ecosystems. Using exclosures, I experimentally manipulated the presence of lizards and measured the effects on arthropods and plants. Web building spider densities increased dramatically following lizard removal. At one sampling date, spider webs were closer to the ground in lizard exclosures. Across all or at specific dates, captures of all arthropods, Coleoptera, Collembola, Formicidae and other Hymenoptera were lower in lizard exclosures. On the last sampling date I found higher herbivory in exclosures. I found limited evidence that these shifts caused changes in plant biomass, abundance or reproductive effort. I hypothesize that high compensatory predation partially explains these results, and that ecologists need to consider top down forcing by carnivores in desert ecosystems. In Chapter 4, I test the hypothesis that a potential consequence of ecological release is higher mite ectoparasitism in White Sands lizards. I tested this hypothesis by quantifying ectoparasitism in four lizard species across habitats and years, and leveraged this dataset to test multiple other hypotheses for causes of variation in parasitism between populations and individuals. Contrary to my primary hypothesis, mite loading was lower in White Sands than in the surrounding desert scrub across lizard species. I also found strong variation with species and year, with year effects dwarfing any other drivers of ectoparasitism. Consistent with other work, I found higher ectoparasitism on males than females and a positive relationship between body condition and ectoparasitism. Date, conspecific abundance, lizard abundance and squamate richness also had correlations with mite loading, with directionality varying by host species. My work demonstrates that the effects of ecological release are complex and multifaceted. Multiple ecological processes need to be considered in tandem in order to understand the consequences of shifts in species diversity and composition.