Hindcasting Ecosystem Functioning Change in an Anthropogenized Estuary: Implications for an Era of Global Change

Understanding how altered hydrodynamics related to climate change and anthropogenic modifications affect ecosystem integrity of shallow coastal soft-sediment environments requires a sound integration of how species populations influence ecosystem functioning across heterogeneous spatial scales. Here, we hindcasted how intertidal habitat loss and altered hydrodynamic regimes between 1955 and 2010 associated with geomorphological change to accommodate expansion in anthropogenic activities in the Western Scheldt altered spatial patterns and basin-wide estimates of ecosystem functioning. To this end we combined an empirically derived metabolic model for the effect of the common ragworm Hediste diversicolor on sediment biogeochemistry (measured as sediment oxygen uptake) with a hydrodynamic and population biomass distribution model. Our integrative modeling approach predicted an overall decrease by 304 tons in ragworm biomass between 1955 and 2010, accounting for a reduction by 28% in stimulated sediment oxygen uptake at the landscape scale. Local gains or losses in habitat suitability and ecosystem functioning were primarily driven by changes in maximal current velocities and inundation regimes resulting from deepening, dredging and disposal practices. By looking into the past, we have demonstrated how hydro- and morphodynamic changes affect soft-sediment ecology and highlight the applicability of the integrative framework to upscale anticipated population effects on ecosystem functioning.

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Migratory Animals Couple Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning Worldwide

Science ◽

10.1126/science.1242552 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 344 (6179) ◽

pp. 1242552 ◽

Cited By ~ 314

Author(s):

S. Bauer ◽

B. J. Hoye

Keyword(s):

Food Web ◽

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Energy Flow ◽

Community Dynamics ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Trophic Cascades ◽

Ecological Networks ◽

Animal Kingdom ◽

Integrative Framework ◽

Wide Range

Animal migrations span the globe, involving immense numbers of individuals from a wide range of taxa. Migrants transport nutrients, energy, and other organisms as they forage and are preyed upon throughout their journeys. These highly predictable, pulsed movements across large spatial scales render migration a potentially powerful yet underappreciated dimension of biodiversity that is intimately embedded within resident communities. We review examples from across the animal kingdom to distill fundamental processes by which migratory animals influence communities and ecosystems, demonstrating that they can uniquely alter energy flow, food-web topology and stability, trophic cascades, and the structure of metacommunities. Given the potential for migration to alter ecological networks worldwide, we suggest an integrative framework through which community dynamics and ecosystem functioning may explicitly consider animal migrations.

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Responses of Vertebrate Wildlife to Oil and Natural Gas Development: Patterns and Frontiers

Current Landscape Ecology Reports ◽

10.1007/s40823-021-00065-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

A. D. Chalfoun

Keyword(s):

Natural Gas ◽

Anthropogenic Activities ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Habitat Type ◽

Population Level ◽

Low Frequencies ◽

Natural Gas Development ◽

The Usa ◽

Oil And Natural Gas

Abstract Purpose of Review Anthropogenic activities can lead to the loss, fragmentation, and alteration of wildlife habitats. I reviewed the recent literature (2014–2019) focused on the responses of avian, mammalian, and herpetofaunal species to oil and natural gas development, a widespread and still-expanding land use worldwide. My primary goals were to identify any generalities in species’ responses to development and summarize remaining gaps in knowledge. To do so, I evaluated the directionality of a wide variety of responses in relation to taxon, location, development type, development metric, habitat type, and spatiotemporal aspects. Recent Findings Studies (n = 70) were restricted to the USA and Canada, and taxonomically biased towards birds and mammals. Longer studies, but not those incorporating multiple spatial scales, were more likely to detect significant responses. Negative responses of all types were present in relatively low frequencies across all taxa, locations, development types, and development metrics but were context-dependent. The directionality of responses by the same species often varied across studies or development metrics. Summary The state of knowledge about wildlife responses to oil and natural gas development has developed considerably, though many biases and gaps remain. Studies outside of North America and that focus on herpetofauna are lacking. Tests of mechanistic hypotheses for effects, long-term studies, assessment of response thresholds, and experimental designs that isolate the effects of different stimuli associated with development, remain critical. Moreover, tests of the efficacy of habitat mitigation efforts have been rare. Finally, investigations of the demographic effects of development across the full annual cycle were absent for non-game species and are critical for the estimation of population-level effects.

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Influence of nutrients enrichment on ecosystem functioning in a subpolar seagrass meadow

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-22581 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ludovic Pascal ◽

Gwénaëlle Chaillou ◽

Pascal Bernatchez ◽

Christian Nozais ◽

Philippe Archambault

Keyword(s):

Nutrient Enrichment ◽

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Anthropogenic Activities ◽

Growing Season ◽

Benthic Fluxes ◽

Seagrass Meadows ◽

Time Period ◽

Mesocosm Experiments ◽

Functional Consequences ◽

Summer Time

Seagrass meadows are among the most productive ecosystems in the world: they store a large amount of carbon and host highly&#160;diverse macrobenthic communities. They also play a key role in biogeochemistry at the sediment-water interface. The light requirements of seagrasses limit their development to shallow coastal areas where they are facing various natural and anthropogenic disturbances, which has induced a global loss of these ecosystems over the last decades. Nutrient enrichment of coastal waters, resulting from anthropogenic activities is one of the leading causes of this decline. Subpolar seagrass meadows present a strong seasonal dynamic, with a long winter when seagrasses rely on carbon reserves that they build up during the short growing season (limited to two to three months during summer time). Hence, it has been hypothesized that the effects of nutrient enrichment on seagrass ecosystem functioning depend on seasonal dynamics. In this study, we performed a series of mesocosm experiments over a month period to investigate the effects of the timing, duration and intensity of disturbance on macrofauna bioturbation, oxygen and nutrients porewater concentration profiles and benthic fluxes using three levels (including control) of realistic nutrient enrichments at the beginning (June) and at the end (August) of the growing season. In May, effects of intermediate level of nutrient enrichment were only visible on total oxygen uptake by the sediment at day 30 of disturbance while it affected oxygen and nutrients benthic fluxes at day 15 in August. The highest level of nutrient enrichment affected oxygen and nutrients benthic fluxes in May and August. Overall, our results highlight the importance of considering the time (period and duration) in the assessment of the functional consequences of disturbances.

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Negative or positive effects of plantation and intensive forestry on biodiversity: A matter of scale and perspective

The Forestry Chronicle ◽

10.5558/tfc86354-3 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 86 (3) ◽

pp. 354-364 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Henrik Hartmann ◽

Gaëtan Daoust ◽

Brigitte Bigué

Keyword(s):

Forest Management ◽

Large Scale ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

High Yield ◽

Ecosystem Integrity ◽

Positive Effects ◽

Management Paradigms ◽

Carry Over ◽

Terrestrial Biodiversity

Terrestrial biodiversity is closely linked to forest ecosystems but anthropogenic reductions in forest cover and changes in forest structure and composition jeopardize their biodiversity. Several forest species are threatened because of reduced habitat quality and fragmentation or even habitat loss as a result of forest management activities. In response to this threat, integrated forest management (IFM) was developed in the early 1990s and has been applied over large spatial scales ever since. While IFM seeks to satisfy both human resource demands and ecosystem integrity, the whole forest matrix is affected and this may also have negative impacts on biodiversity. The concept of forest zoning (e.g., Triad) avoids these issues by physically separating land uses from each other. The zoning approach has been developed in the same period as IFM, but there are still very few examples of large-scale applications. This may be because its distinctiveness from IFM may not always seem clear and because forest zoning is not easily implemented. Here we explain these differences and show that IFM and the zoning approach are indeed different management paradigms. We advocate the use of high-yield plantations within the zoning paradigm as a means for biodiversity conservation and review the literature (with an emphasis on the northern hemisphere and on plantation forestry within a land-zoning approach) on impacts of forest management activities on biodiversity. Furthermore, we give advice on issues that require consideration when implementing forest zoning at both the stand and the landscape levels. We recommend several small changes in design and management of forest plantations as a means to significantly increase their biodiversity value. We conclude that while forest zoning seems an adequate strategy for the Canadian forestry sector, a shift in paradigm must carry over to policy-makers and legislation if this approach is to succeed. Key words: biodiversity, landbase zoning, forest management, intensive silviculture, plantation forests

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Predicting habitat suitability for rare plants at local spatial scales using a species distribution model

Ecological Applications ◽

10.1890/09-1190.1 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 33-47 ◽

Cited By ~ 73

Author(s):

Melanie Gogol-Prokurat

Keyword(s):

Species Distribution ◽

Habitat Suitability ◽

Species Distribution Model ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Rare Plants ◽

Distribution Model

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Assessing the effect of fish size on species distribution model performance in southern Chilean rivers

10.7287/peerj.preprints.26874 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel Zamorano ◽

Fabio Labra ◽

Marcelo Villarroel ◽

Luca Mao ◽

Shaw Lucy ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Body Size ◽

Species Distribution ◽

River Flow ◽

Species Distribution Model ◽

Anthropogenic Activities ◽

Model Performance ◽

Distribution Model ◽

Distribution Models ◽

Fish Size ◽

River Fish

Despite its theoretical relationship, the effect of body size on the performance of species distribution models (SDM) has only been assessed in a few studies of terrestrial taxa. We aim to assess the effect of body size on the performance of SDM in river fish. We study seven Chilean freshwater fish, using models trained with three different sets of predictor variables: ecological (Eco), anthropogenic (Antr) and both (Eco+Antr). Our results indicate that the performance of the Eco+Antr models improves with fish size. These results highlight the importance of two novel predictive layers: the source of river flow and the overproduction of biotopes by anthropogenic activities. We compare our work with previous studies that modeled river fish, and observe a similar relationship in most cases. We discuss the current challenges of the modeling of riverine species, and how our work helps suggest possible solutions.

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A universal scaling method for biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships

10.1101/662783 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

K.E. Barry ◽

G.A. Pinter ◽

J.W. Strini ◽

K. Yang ◽

I.G. Lauko ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Species Richness ◽

Biomass Production ◽

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Tropical Dry Forest ◽

Dry Forest ◽

Additional Species ◽

Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽

Natural Systems ◽

Species Area

SummaryGlobal biodiversity is declining at rates faster than at any other point in human history. Experimental manipulations of biodiversity at small spatial scales have demonstrated that communities with fewer species consistently produce less biomass than higher diversity communities. However, understanding how the global extinction crisis is likely to impact global ecosystem functioning will require applying these local and largely experimental findings to natural systems at substantially larger spatial and temporal scales. Here we propose that we can use two simple macroecological patterns – the species area curve and the biomass-area curve – to upscale the species richness-biomass relationship. We demonstrate that at local spatial scales, each additional species will contribute more to biomass production with increasing area sampled because the species-area curve saturates and the biomass-area curve increases monotonically. We use species-area and biomass-area curves from a Minnesota grassland and a Panamanian tropical dry forest to examine the species richness – biomass relationship at three and ten sampling extents, respectively. In both datasets, the observed relationship between biodiversity and biomass production at every sampling extent was predicted from simple species-area and biomass-area relationships. These findings suggest that macroecological patterns like the species-area curve underpin the scaling of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research and can be used to predict these relationships at the global scales where they are relevant for species loss.

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Scaling up biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships: the role of environmental heterogeneity in space and time

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2020.2779 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 288 (1946) ◽

pp. 20202779

Author(s):

Patrick L. Thompson ◽

Sonia Kéfi ◽

Yuval R. Zelnik ◽

Laura E. Dee ◽

Shaopeng Wang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Environmental Conditions ◽

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Environmental Heterogeneity ◽

Community Dynamics ◽

Formal Model ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Scale Dependence ◽

Space And Time ◽

Number Of Species

The biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationship is expected to be scale-dependent. The autocorrelation of environmental heterogeneity is hypothesized to explain this scale dependence because it influences how quickly biodiversity accumulates over space or time. However, this link has yet to be demonstrated in a formal model. Here, we use a Lotka–Volterra competition model to simulate community dynamics when environmental conditions vary across either space or time. Species differ in their optimal environmental conditions, which results in turnover in community composition. We vary biodiversity by modelling communities with different sized regional species pools and ask how the amount of biomass per unit area depends on the number of species present, and the spatial or temporal scale at which it is measured. We find that more biodiversity is required to maintain functioning at larger temporal and spatial scales. The number of species required increases quickly when environmental autocorrelation is low, and slowly when autocorrelation is high. Both spatial and temporal environmental heterogeneity lead to scale dependence in BEF, but autocorrelation has larger impacts when environmental change is temporal. These findings show how the biodiversity required to maintain functioning is expected to increase over space and time.

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Stochastic stress-testing approach for assessing resilience of urban water systems from source to tap

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13284 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Dionysios Nikolopoulos ◽

Panagiotis Kossieris ◽

Christos Makropoulos

Keyword(s):

Stress Testing ◽

Water Cycle ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Water System ◽

Water Systems ◽

Distribution Model ◽

Generation Model ◽

Urban Water ◽

Urban Water Systems

Urban water systems are designed with the goal of delivering their service for several decades.&#160; The infrastructure will inevitably face long-term uncertainty in a multitude of parameters from the hydroclimatic and socioeconomic realms (e.g., climate change, limited supply of water in terms quantity and acceptable quality, population growth, shifting demand patterns, industrialization), as well as from the conceptual realm of the decision maker (e.g., changes in policy, system maintenance incentives, investment rate, expansion plans). Because urban water systems are overly complex, a holistic analysis involves the use of various models that individually pertain to a smaller sub-system and a variety of metrics to assess performance, whereas the analysis is accomplished at different temporal and spatial scales for each sub-system. In this work, we integrate a water resources management model with a water distribution model and a water demand generation model at smaller (household and district) scale, allowing us to simulate urban water systems &#8220;from source to tap&#8221;, covering the entire water cycle. We also couple a stochastic simulation module that supports the representation of uncertainty throughout the water cycle. The performance of the integrated system under long term uncertainty is assessed with the novel measure of system&#8217;s resilience i.e. the degree to which a water system continues to perform under progressively increasing disturbance. This evaluation is essentially a framework of systematic stress-testing, where the disturbance is described via stochastically changing parameters in an ensemble of scenarios that represent future world views. The framework is showcased through a synthesized case study of a medium-sized urban water system.AcknowledgementThis research is carried out / funded in the context of the project &#8220;A resilience assessment framework for water supply infrastructure under long-term uncertainty: A Source-to-Tap methodology integrating state of the art computational tools&#8221; (MIS 5049174) under the call for proposals &#8220;Researchers' support with an emphasis on young researchers- 2nd Cycle&#8221;. The project is co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund- ESF) by the Operational Programme Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning 2014-2020.&#8221;

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