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Effects of changing climate on European stream invertebrate communities: A long-term data analysis.
Journal article

Effects of changing climate on European stream invertebrate communities: A long-term data analysis.

  • Jourdan J Department of River Ecology and Conservation, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, Gelnhausen, Germany. Electronic address: Jonas.Jourdan@senckenberg.de.
  • O'Hara RB Department of Mathematical Sciences, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
  • Bottarin R Eurac Research, Bolzano, BZ, Italy.
  • Huttunen KL Department of Ecology & Genetics, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
  • Kuemmerlen M Dept. Systems Analysis, Integrated Assessment and Modelling, Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Duebendorf, Switzerland.
  • Monteith D Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Lancaster Environment Centre, UK.
  • Muotka T Department of Ecology & Genetics, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland; Natural Environment Centre, Finnish Environment Institute, Finland.
  • Ozoliņš D Institute of Biology, University of Latvia.
  • Paavola R Oulanka research station, University of Oulu Infrastructure Platform, University of Oulu, Kuusamo, Finland.
  • Pilotto F Department of River Ecology and Conservation, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, Gelnhausen, Germany.
  • Springe G Institute of Biology, University of Latvia.
  • Skuja A Institute of Biology, University of Latvia.
  • Sundermann A Department of River Ecology and Conservation, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, Gelnhausen, Germany; Institute of Ecology, Evolution & Diversity, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
  • Tonkin JD Department of Integrative Biology, 3029 Cordley Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA.
  • Haase P Department of River Ecology and Conservation, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, Gelnhausen, Germany; Faculty of Biology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
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  • 2017-12-02
Published in:
  • The Science of the total environment. - 2018
Aquatic insects
Disturbances
Extreme events
Freshwater macroinvertebrates
Global change
Thermal tolerance
Animals
Climate Change
Conservation of Natural Resources
Ecosystem
Europe
Introduced Species
Invertebrates
Rivers
Temperature
English Long-term observations on riverine benthic invertebrate communities enable assessments of the potential impacts of global change on stream ecosystems. Besides increasing average temperatures, many studies predict greater temperature extremes and intense precipitation events as a consequence of climate change. In this study we examined long-term observation data (10-32years) of 26 streams and rivers from four ecoregions in the European Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network, to investigate invertebrate community responses to changing climatic conditions. We used functional trait and multi-taxonomic analyses and combined examinations of general long-term changes in communities with detailed analyses of the impact of different climatic drivers (i.e., various temperature and precipitation variables) by focusing on the response of communities to climatic conditions of the previous year. Taxa and ecoregions differed substantially in their response to climate change conditions. We did not observe any trend of changes in total taxonomic richness or overall abundance over time or with increasing temperatures, which reflects a compensatory turnover in the composition of communities; sensitive Plecoptera decreased in response to warmer years and Ephemeroptera increased in northern regions. Invasive species increased with an increasing number of extreme days which also caused an apparent upstream community movement. The observed changes in functional feeding group diversity indicate that climate change may be associated with changes in trophic interactions within aquatic food webs. These findings highlight the vulnerability of riverine ecosystems to climate change and emphasize the need to further explore the interactive effects of climate change variables with other local stressors to develop appropriate conservation measures.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/209994
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