Human disturbance affects the long-term spatial synchrony of freshwater invertebrate communities

Feio, Maria João; Dolédec, Sylvain; Graça, Manuel A. S.

doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2014.09.026

Cited by 34 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(52 reference statements)

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“…Previous studies have shown that sensitive species were absent or less abundant in streams draining urban areas (WALSH et al, 2005;JOHNSON et al, 2006;ORMEROD et al, 2010;GRAÇA, 2015;PARR et al, 2015).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Metrics of benthic communities and habitat quality associated to different types of land use

Menezes

Oliveira

Salla

2019

Eng. Sanit. Ambient.

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Aquatic ecosystems are under severe anthropogenic modifications.Thus, the dependent biological communities in these environments are also changed. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of urban development in a highly impacted ecosystem. We selected 15 sampling points along the stream Ribeirão Vermelho, in which were sampled benthic macroinvertebrates and assessed the water and habitat diversity. It was found an impact gradient, with some the reference points classified as natural and others as impacted. There was a significant difference in all biological indicators used. The total number of taxa, the wealth of Diptera, the taxa Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera, and the diversity indices, the Water Quality Indices, and the percentage of herbivores crushers and predators were significantly higher in points classified as natural and changed. The relative abundances of collectors, filter feeding, chironomids and parasites were significantly lower in sites classified as natural in relation to impacted ones. The metrics of the macroinvertebrate community benthic and Habitat Diversity Protocol were influenced by environmental degradation, being a useful tool for planning and development actions for the preservation of watersheds and the prioritization of high-value transmission systems for protection and rehabilitation of aquatic ecosystems Keywords: biomonitoring; urban stream; benthic macroinvertebrates. ¹Universidade de Brasília -Brasília (DF), Brazil. ²Universidade de Lavras -Lavras (MG), Brazil. ³Universidade de Uberlândia -Uberlândia (MG), Brazil.RESUMO Os ecossistemas aquáticos estão sob fortes modificações antrópicas. Assim, comunidades biológicas dependentes desses ambientes também são alteradas. O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar os efeitos do desenvolvimento urbano em um ecossistema impactado. Foram selecionadas 15 seções de amostragem ao longo do Ribeirão Vermelho e em cada uma foi amostrada a comunidade de macroinvertebrados bentônicos e avaliada a diversidade de habitat e qualidade da água. Observou-se um gradiente de impacto ao longo do ribeirão, com alguns pontos de referência classificados como naturais e outros como impactados. Houve diferença significativa em todos os indicadores biológicos utilizados. O número total de táxons, riqueza de Diptera, Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera e Trichoptera, e os índices de diversidade, de qualidade da água e porcentagem de herbívoros, trituradores e predadores foram significativamente maiores nos pontos classificados como naturais e impactados. As abundâncias relativas de coletores, filtradores, quironomídeos e parasitas foram significativamente menores em sítios classificados como naturais em relação aos impactados. Observou-se que as métricas das comunidades bentônicas de macroinvertebrados e o Protocolo de Avaliação Rápida da Diversidade de Habitat foram influenciados pela degradaçãoambiental, sendo estas ferramentas úteis para ações de planejamento e desenvolvimento para a preservação de bacias hidrográficas e a priorização de sist...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Metrics of benthic communities and habitat quality associated to different types of land use

Menezes

Oliveira

Salla

2019

Eng. Sanit. Ambient.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Thirdly, the apparent effects of increased functional diversity in reducing synchrony argues for biodiversity conservation aimed at retaining or restoring composition in stream communities. Communities supporting more diverse functional traits are more likely to display independent or compensatory dynamics among species which respond differently to environmental variation (Feio et al., 2015). One small caveat from our work is that the reduction in community synchrony brought by higher functional diversity was partly driven by the underlying increase in taxonomic richness, which is known to limit synchrony among species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(iii) streams or time periods with greater functional diversity would buffer communities against the synchronizing effects of the NAO. This is because communities supporting a range of functional traits are more likely to have internal community dynamics that are resilient to environmental variation (Feio et al, 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Climatic effects on the synchrony and stability of temperate headwater invertebrates over four decades

Larsen,

Joyce,

Vaughan

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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Important clues about the ecological effects of climate change can arise from understanding the influence of other Earth‐system processes on ecosystem dynamics but few studies span the inter‐decadal timescales required. We, therefore, examined how variation in annual weather patterns associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) over four decades was linked to synchrony and stability in a metacommunity of stream invertebrates across multiple, contrasting headwaters in central Wales (UK). Prolonged warmer and wetter conditions during positive NAO winters appeared to synchronize variations in population and community composition among and within streams thereby reducing stability across levels of ecological organization. This climatically mediated synchronization occurred in all streams irrespective of acid–base status and land use, but was weaker where invertebrate communities were more functionally diverse. Wavelet linear models indicated that variation in the NAO explained up to 50% of overall synchrony in species abundances at a timescale of 4–6 years. The NAO appeared to affect ecological dynamics through local variations in temperature, precipitation and discharge, but increasing hydrochemical variability within sites during wetter winters might have contributed. Our findings illustrate how large‐scale climatic fluctuations generated over the North Atlantic can affect population persistence and dynamics in inland freshwater ecosystems in ways that transcend local catchment character. Protecting and restoring functional diversity in stream communities might increase their stability against warmer, wetter conditions that are analogues of ongoing climate change. Catchment management could also dampen impacts and provide options for climate change adaptation.

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“…For example, compensatory dynamics stabilize productivity when different populations have offsetting fluctuations, such that increases in the abundance or biomass of one or more species are accompanied by corresponding decreases in others (e.g., Schindler, 1990, Frost et al , 1995, Bai et al , 2004, Hallett et al , 2014). Conversely, when species increase or decrease together (e.g., when species share responses to an external driver), the resulting synchrony increases aggregate community variability and has been used as a proxy for instability (e.g., Houlahan et al , 2007, Keitt, 2008, Feio et al , 2015, Ma et al , 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new variance ratio metric to detect the timescale of compensatory dynamics

Zhao

Wang

Hallett

et al. 2019

Preprint

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AbstractUnderstanding the mechanisms governing ecological stability – why a property such as primary productivity is stable in some communities and variable in others – has long been a focus of ecology. Compensatory dynamics, in which anti-synchronous fluctuations between populations buffer against fluctuations at the community level, is a key theoretical mechanism of stability. Classically, compensatory dynamics have been quantified using a “variance ratio” approach that compares the ratio between community variance and aggregate population variance, such that a lower ratio indicates compensation and a higher ratio indicates synchrony among species fluctuations. However, population dynamics may be influenced by different drivers that operate on different timescales, and evidence from aquatic systems indicates that communities can be compensatory on some timescales and synchronous on others. The variance ratio and related metrics cannot reflect this timescale-specificity, yet have remained popular, especially in terrestrial systems. Here, we develop a timescale-specific variance ratio approach that formally decomposes the classical variance ratio according to the timescales of distinct contributions. The approach is implemented in a new R package, called tsvr, that accompanies this paper. We apply our approach to a long-term, multi-site grassland community dataset. Our approach demonstrates that the degree of compensation versus synchrony in community dynamics can vary by timescale. Across sites, population variability was typically greater over longer compared to shorter timescales. At some sites, minimal timescale-specificity in compensatory dynamics translated this pattern of population variability into a similar pattern of greater community variability on longer compared to shorter timescales. But at other sites, differentially stronger compensatory dynamics at longer compared to shorter timescales produced lower-than-expected community variability on longer timescales. Within every site there were plots that exhibited shifts in the strength of compensation between timescales. Our results highlight that compensatory versus synchronous dynamics are intrinsically timescale-dependent concepts, and our timescale-specific variance ratio provides a metric to quantify timescale-specificity and relate it back to the classic variance ratio.

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Human disturbance affects the long-term spatial synchrony of freshwater invertebrate communities

Cited by 34 publications

References 44 publications

Metrics of benthic communities and habitat quality associated to different types of land use

Metrics of benthic communities and habitat quality associated to different types of land use

Climatic effects on the synchrony and stability of temperate headwater invertebrates over four decades

A new variance ratio metric to detect the timescale of compensatory dynamics

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