Spatiotemporal variability of abundance size-spectra in streams across North America

Abstract

The distribution of abundance and biomass within ecological communities is related to trophic transfer efficiency from prey to predators. While it is considered to be one of the few consistent patterns in ecology, spatiotemporal variation of this relationship across continental-scale environmental gradients is unknown. Using a database of stream communities collected across North America (18-68°N latitude, -4 to 25°C mean annual temperature) over 3 years, we constructed 162 mass-abundance relationships (i.e. size spectra). Size-spectra slopes declined (became steeper) with increasing temperature. However, the magnitude of change was relatively small, with median slopes changing from -1.2 to -1.3 across a 29°C range in mean annual temperature. In contrast, total community biomass increased 3-fold over the temperature gradient. Our study suggests strong conservation of abundance size-spectra in streams across broad natural environmental gradients. This supports the emerging use of size-spectra deviations as indicators of ecosystem health.

Automated Software for Counting and Measuring Hyalella Genus Using Artificial Intelligence

“…Camacho-Pinzón, D. L.; Castro-Rebolledo, M. I.; & Rangel-Churio, 2014). Other studies analyze size spectra(Pomeranz y Wesner, 2020) and the organization of communities through the analysis of body measurement as a dispersion limiting factor(Li et al 2021), among others. Therefore, measurements of body length and maximum thickness obtained through HyACS would facilitate ecological studies of this type.…”