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Junker JR, Cross WF, Hood JM, Benstead JP, Huryn AD, Nelson D, Ólafsson JS, Gíslason GM. Environmental warming increases the importance of high-turnover energy channels in stream food webs. Ecology 2024; 105:e4314. [PMID: 38710667 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.4314] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/02/2023] [Revised: 01/03/2024] [Accepted: 03/14/2024] [Indexed: 05/08/2024]
Abstract
Warming temperatures are altering communities and trophic networks across Earth's ecosystems. While the overall influence of warming on food webs is often context-dependent, increasing temperatures are predicted to change communities in two fundamental ways: (1) by reducing average body size and (2) by increasing individual metabolic rates. These warming-induced changes have the potential to influence the distribution of food web fluxes, food web stability, and the relative importance of deterministic and stochastic ecological processes shaping community assembly. Here, we quantified patterns and the relative distribution of organic matter fluxes through stream food webs spanning a broad natural temperature gradient (5-27°C). We then related these patterns to species and community trait distributions of mean body size and population biomass turnover (P:B) within and across streams. We predicted that (1) communities in warmer streams would exhibit smaller body size and higher P:B and (2) organic matter fluxes within warmer communities would increasingly skew toward smaller, higher P:B populations. Across the temperature gradient, warmer communities were characterized by smaller body size (~9% per °C) and higher P:B (~7% faster turnover per °C) populations on average. Additionally, organic matter fluxes within warmer streams were increasingly skewed toward higher P:B populations, demonstrating that warming can restructure organic matter fluxes in both an absolute and relative sense. With warming, the relative distribution of organic matter fluxes was decreasingly likely to arise through the random sorting of species, suggesting stronger selection for traits driving high turnover with increasing temperature. Our study suggests that a warming world will favor energy fluxes through "smaller and faster" populations, and that these changes may be more predictable than previously thought.
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Affiliation(s)
- James R Junker
- Department of Ecology, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, USA
| | - Wyatt F Cross
- Department of Ecology, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, USA
| | - James M Hood
- The Aquatic Ecology Laboratory, Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
- Translational Data Analytics Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
| | - Jonathan P Benstead
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
| | - Alexander D Huryn
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
| | - Daniel Nelson
- National Aquatic Monitoring Center, Department of Watershed Sciences, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA
| | - Jón S Ólafsson
- Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, Hafnarfjördur, Iceland
| | - Gísli M Gíslason
- University of Iceland, Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences, Reykjavík, Iceland
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Nagelkerken I, Connell SD. Ocean acidification drives global reshuffling of ecological communities. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2022; 28:7038-7048. [PMID: 36172974 PMCID: PMC9828364 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16410] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2022] [Revised: 08/09/2022] [Accepted: 08/10/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
The paradigm that climate change will alter global marine biodiversity is one of the most widely accepted. Yet, its predictions remain difficult to test because laboratory systems are inadequate at incorporating ecological complexity, and common biodiversity metrics have varying sensitivity to detect change. Here, we test for the prevalence of global responses in biodiversity and community-level change to future climate (acidification and warming) from studies at volcanic CO2 vents across four major global coastal ecosystems and studies in laboratory mesocosms. We detected globally replicable patterns of species replacements and community reshuffling under ocean acidification in major natural ecosystems, yet species diversity and other common biodiversity metrics were often insensitive to detect such community change, even under significant habitat loss. Where there was a lack of consistent patterns of biodiversity change, these were a function of similar numbers of studies observing negative versus positive species responses to climate stress. Laboratory studies showed weaker sensitivity to detect species replacements and community reshuffling in general. We conclude that common biodiversity metrics can be insensitive in revealing the anticipated effects of climate stress on biodiversity-even under significant biogenic habitat loss-and can mask widespread reshuffling of ecological communities in a future ocean. Although the influence of ocean acidification on community restructuring can be less evident than species loss, such changes can drive the dynamics of ecosystem stability or their functional change. Importantly, species identity matters, representing a substantial influence of future oceans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ivan Nagelkerken
- Southern Seas Ecology Laboratories, School of Biological Sciences and The Environment InstituteThe University of AdelaideAdelaideSouth AustraliaAustralia
| | - Sean D. Connell
- Southern Seas Ecology Laboratories, School of Biological Sciences and The Environment InstituteThe University of AdelaideAdelaideSouth AustraliaAustralia
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Dajka J, di Carvalho JA, Ryabov A, Scheiffarth G, Rönn L, Dekker R, Peters K, Leberecht B, Hillebrand H. Modeling drivers of biodiversity change emphasizes the need for multivariate assessments and rescaled targeting for management. CONSERVATION SCIENCE AND PRACTICE 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/csp2.12794] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Jan‐Claas Dajka
- Helmholtz‐Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg (HIFMB) Oldenburg Germany
- Institute for Chemistry and Biology of Marine Environments (ICBM), Carl‐von‐Ossietzky University Oldenburg Oldenburg Germany
| | - Josie Antonucci di Carvalho
- Helmholtz‐Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg (HIFMB) Oldenburg Germany
- Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz‐Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) Bremerhaven Germany
| | - Alexey Ryabov
- Institute for Chemistry and Biology of Marine Environments (ICBM), Carl‐von‐Ossietzky University Oldenburg Oldenburg Germany
| | - Gregor Scheiffarth
- Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park Authority (NLPVW) Wilhelmshaven Germany
| | - Lena Rönn
- Lower Saxony Water Management, Coastal Defence and Nature Conservation Agency (NLWKN) Oldenburg Germany
| | - Rob Dekker
- Department of Coastal Systems NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research Texel The Netherlands
| | - Kimberley Peters
- Helmholtz‐Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg (HIFMB) Oldenburg Germany
- Institute for Chemistry and Biology of Marine Environments (ICBM), Carl‐von‐Ossietzky University Oldenburg Oldenburg Germany
- Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz‐Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) Bremerhaven Germany
| | - Bo Leberecht
- Institute of Biology and Environmental Sciences (IBU), Carl‐von‐Ossietzky‐University Oldenburg Oldenburg Germany
| | - Helmut Hillebrand
- Helmholtz‐Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg (HIFMB) Oldenburg Germany
- Institute for Chemistry and Biology of Marine Environments (ICBM), Carl‐von‐Ossietzky University Oldenburg Oldenburg Germany
- Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz‐Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) Bremerhaven Germany
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