Stream macroinvertebrate community metrics consistently respond to a spatiotemporal disturbance gradient but composition is more context-dependent

Nguyen, Hong Hanh; Kiesel, Jens; Peters, Kristin; Hering, Daniel; Sinclair, James S.; Haase, Peter

doi:10.1007/s10980-023-01769-w

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…However, long-term data at KiW indicated that pollutants were more important than land-use and climate-related drivers combined, supporting our third hypothesis that emphasizes the importance of incorporating chemical variables in long-term studies of multiple driver impacts on riverine ecosystems. This result aligns with findings from a previous shorter-term study in this area [58], confirming that disturbed downstream sites are significantly affected by accumulated pollutants causing a lesser improvement over time when compared to communities at less-disturbed upstream sites. However, it should be noted that pollutant data were only available for one site that was also particularly disturbed.…”

Section: Influential Drivers Of Long-term Trends Of Macroinvertebrate...supporting

confidence: 90%

Long-term trends in stream benthic macroinvertebrate communities are driven by chemicals

Nguyen,

Welti,

Haubrock

et al. 2023

Environ Sci Eur

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Background Recent studies indicate a partial recovery of European stream macroinvertebrate diversity. However, the key determinants shaping the overall community trends are only partly explored, owing to insufficient long-term environmental data collected in parallel with community responses. We investigate long-term trends in stream macroinvertebrate communities (i.e., taxonomic and trait composition and metrics), and explore their relationships to diverse environmental drivers (i.e., land-use, runoff, water temperature, and in-stream chemicals). We use macroinvertebrate data collected annually in spring and summer between 2007 and 2021 at four sampling sites within the Rhine-Main-Observatory Long-Term Ecological Research site. These sampling sites encompass a gradient from less-disturbed to disturbed conditions. Results Over time, shifts in taxonomic and trait composition and metrics indicated an improvement in environmental conditions. Long-term trends of biological trait metrics mirrored those for taxonomic metrics; for example, increases over time in taxonomic richness were paralleled by increases in functional richness and functional dispersion. Meanwhile, trends of ecological trait metrics were particularly driven by changes in environmental drivers. Land-use, water temperature, and runoff explained around 20% of the overall variance in long-term trends of macroinvertebrate communities. Water temperature and land-use played relatively equal roles in shaping taxonomic and trait composition and metric responses in spring, while water temperature emerged as the most influential driver in summer. However, when incorporating long-term chemical data as a more direct measurement of changes in land-use, the overall variance explained in macroinvertebrate community trends increased to c.a. 50% in both seasons. Conclusions Examining more relevant driver variables beyond land-use and climate improves insights into why biodiversity exhibits long-term trends. We call for an increase in initiatives to link biodiversity monitoring with parallel sampling of relevant environmental drivers.

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Section: Influential Drivers Of Long-term Trends Of Macroinvertebrate...supporting

confidence: 90%

Long-term trends in stream benthic macroinvertebrate communities are driven by chemicals

Nguyen,

Welti,

Haubrock

et al. 2023

Environ Sci Eur

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“…In line with the broader trend of climate warming across Central Europe (IPCC, 2023), the region has witnessed notable instances of prolonged drought (Haase et al, 2019;e.g., most extreme low flows in summer 2016). These climatic shifts have resulted in observable changes in the composition of the macroinvertebrate community, partially attributed to their responses to drought events (Nguyen et al, 2023(Nguyen et al, , 2024.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Transferability of stream benthic macroinvertebrate distribution models to drought-related conditions

Medina Madariaga,

Nguyen,

Kiesel

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Freshwater ecosystems increasingly face pressures from climate change induced extreme events, like droughts, posing significant threats to biodiversity. While Species Distribution Models (SDMs) serve as vital tools for predicting species responses to environmental shifts, their transferability to novel environmental conditions, especially during and after drought remains poorly understood. In this study, we delve into the transferability of SDMs for freshwater macroinvertebrates from drought-free to drought-influenced conditions. We examine how sensitive the transferability is to traits such as tolerance scores according to their distribution along longitudinal gradients, as well as the used modelling method. We constructed and validated SDMs for freshwater macroinvertebrates in a central German catchment under drought-free conditions using four different algorithms (Generalised linear models; GLM, Spatial Stream Networks; SSN, Random Forests; RF, and Maximum Entropy; MaxEnt). We then projected these models to environmental conditions influenced by drought, and obtained their transferability by computing the difference in accuracy when predicting under drought-free and drought-influenced conditions (AUCgap). Our findings reveal a marked reduction in SDM accuracy under drought conditions, illustrating the challenges of accurately predicting species distributions into novel environmental conditions. Our results show a slightly better transferability when using SSN and RF. In addition, we observed that SDM transferability can be influenced by species tolerance, with sensitive and tolerant species presenting higher AUCgap (i.e. lower transferability). Furthermore, we found that when sensitive species were modelled using SSNs, the AUCgap was reduced. Our study underscores the limitations of SDMs in capturing species responses to drought and advocates for integrating ecologically relevant predictors and modelling methods that account for the stream connectivity to allow for robust predictions. These considerations could enhance the ability of SDMs to effectively estimate the impacts of extreme events on freshwater biodiversity.

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“…In spring 2021, nineteen samples were collected from various streams across the Kinzig catchment and examined using a range of methods, including a recently developed digital version of diatom light microscopy for improved resolution of community composition (Burfeid-Castellanos et al, 2022), 18S-V9 amplicon sequencing for more comprehensive taxonomic characterisation of MPB communities (Amaral-Zettler et al, 2009) and in situ chlorophyll fluorescence measurements as a proxy for overall and group-specific photosynthetic biomass estimation (Kahlert and McKie, 2014). The Kinzig catchment area (1058 km2) is a long-term ecosystem research site (LTER) in the Rhine-Main Observatory (RMO) (Nguyen et al, 2023). This low-mountain river system flows through different types of land use introducing various stressors.…”

Section: Study Stiementioning

confidence: 99%

“…(3) identify the potential environmental factors that influence community composition in response to environmental conditions and ecological status, as compared to the macrozoobenthos studies of the LTER (Nguyen et al, 2023). We postulated that photosynthetic biomass and composition of MPB communities in the Kinzig catchment correlate with environmental factors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our objectives were to: (1) assess the dynamics of photosynthetic biomass as a result of water physical and chemical conditions; (2) examine microalgae community composition and diversity metrics (abundances, richness, etc.) in relation to environmental variables and associated changes in ecological status; (3) identify the potential environmental factors that influence community composition in response to environmental conditions and ecological status, as compared to the macrozoobenthos studies of the LTER (Nguyen et al, 2023). We postulated that photosynthetic biomass and composition of MPB communities in the Kinzig catchment correlate with environmental factors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessment of microphytobenthos communities in the Kinzig catchment using photosynthesis-related traits, digital light microscopy and 18S-V9 amplicon sequencing

Mayombo,

Dani,

Kloster

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Microalgae form an essential group of benthic organisms that respond swiftly to environmental changes. They are widely used as bioindicators of anthropogenic stressors in freshwater ecosystems. We aimed to assess the responses of microalgae communities to multiple environmental stressors in the Kinzig River catchment, home to a long-term ecological monitoring site, in Germany. We used a photosynthetic biomass proxy alongside community composition of diatoms assessed by digital light microscopy, and of microalgae by 18S-V9 amplicon sequencing, to characterise microalgae at 19 sampling sites scattered across the catchment. Our results revealed significant effects of physical and chemical factors on microalgae biomass and community compositions. We found that conductivity, water temperature and pH were the most important factors affecting microalgae community composition, as observed in both microscopy and amplicon analysis. In addition to these three variables, the effect of total phosphate on all microalgae, together with water discharge on the diatom (Bacillariophyta) communities, as assessed by amplicon analysis, may reveal taxon-specific variations in the ecological responses of different microalgal groups. Our results highlighted the complex relationship between various environmental variables and microalgae biomass and community composition. Further investigations, involving the collection of time series data, are required to fully understand the underlying biotic and abiotic parameters that influence these microalgae communities.

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Stream macroinvertebrate community metrics consistently respond to a spatiotemporal disturbance gradient but composition is more context-dependent

Cited by 10 publications

References 80 publications

Long-term trends in stream benthic macroinvertebrate communities are driven by chemicals

Long-term trends in stream benthic macroinvertebrate communities are driven by chemicals

Transferability of stream benthic macroinvertebrate distribution models to drought-related conditions

Assessment of microphytobenthos communities in the Kinzig catchment using photosynthesis-related traits, digital light microscopy and 18S-V9 amplicon sequencing

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