Intermediate ice scour disturbance is key to maintaining a peak in biodiversity within the shallows of the Western Antarctic Peninsula

Climate-related disturbance regimes are changing rapidly with profound consequences for ecosystems. Disturbance is often perceived as detrimental to biodiversity; however, the literature is divided on how they influence each other. Disturbance events in nature are diverse, occurring across numerous interacting trophic levels and multiple spatial and temporal scales, leading to divergence between empirical and theoretical studies. The shallow Antarctic seafloor has one of the largest disturbance gradients on earth, due to iceberg scouring. Scour rates are changing rapidly along the Western Antarctic Peninsula because of climate change and with further changes predicted, the Antarctic benthos will likely undergo dramatic shifts in diversity. We investigated benthic macro and megafaunal richness across 10–100 m depth range, much of which, 40–100 m, has rarely been sampled. Macro and megafauna species richness peaked at 50–60 m depth, a depth dominated by a diverse range of sessile suspension feeders, with an intermediate level of iceberg disturbance. Our results show that a broad range of disturbance values are required to detect the predicted peak in biodiversity that is consistent with the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis, suggesting ice scour is key to maintaining high biodiversity in Antarctica’s shallows.

Investigating Ecological Disturbance in Streams

Teaching students about ecological disturbance provides them with an understanding of a critical factor that shapes the structure and function of biological communities in environmental systems. This article describes four simple experiments and related curriculum that students can use to conduct inquiry around the theme of disturbance in stream ecosystems: insect drift, colonization, life history, and the intermediate disturbance hypothesis. Over five years, our students conducted these experiments 57 times; 79% of the experiments resulted in data that supported students’ hypotheses. Our findings show that the experiments can be used as a framework for inquiry-based learning about important ecological processes such as disturbance, dispersal, colonization, and succession. These experiments meet several of the Next Generation Science Standards, are easily and ethically conducted, and require very little equipment.

Common Vole as a Focal Small Mammal Species in Orchards of the Northern Zone

In 2018–2020, we performed a country-wide study of small mammals in commercial orchards and berry plantations with the aim of determining whether the common vole (Microtus arvalis) is a more suitable focal species than the field vole (M. agrestis) in the risk assessment of plant protection products in Lithuania (country of the Northern Zone). Common vole was present in 75% of orchards and in 80% of control habitats, accounting for 30% of all trapped individuals. The proportion of this species was stable between years and seasons. The pattern was in agreement with the intermediate disturbance hypothesis, i.e., highest in medium-aged crops, while lowest in habitats with high intensities of agricultural practices. The average relative abundance of common vole in autumn, 2.65 ± 0.52 individuals per 100 trap days, was three times higher than that in summer, with no differences recorded between crops and control habitats. Field vole was present in 30% of locations, only accounting for 2.1% of all trapped individuals. In central and eastern European countries, common vole is more widespread and abundant than field vole. In Lithuania, common vole dominates in orchards and natural habitats and is, therefore, the most relevant small mammal species for higher tier risk assessment.

Grime's CSR Strategies of Aquatic Macrophytes in Different Lagoon Lakes in Northern Turkey

In this study, CSR strategies, biological diversity and water traits were evaluated in three lagoon lakes (Liman, Cernek and Balık) which had different nutrient status in the Central Black Sea Region of Turkey. The most productive lake was Balık lake, while the lowest productive lake is Liman lake in the study area. Secondary strategies were found to be dominant in studied lakes. No species exhibit pure S-strategy in the present study. pH, electrical conductivity, P and NH4 concentrations were found to be significant. However, total of nitrite-N and nitrate-N concentrations were not significant. EC and pH were associated with the species in Liman and Cernek lakes, respectively. However, P and NH4 concentrations were associated with the species in Balık lake according to canonical correspondence analysis. Significant correlations were found among chemical traits and biological diversity. pH was positively correlated with Shannon-Wiener index, while negatively correlated with Simpson and Berger-Parker indexes. No significant correlations were found between water P concentrations and evenness. Our data supported intermediate disturbance hypothesis in the studied lakes.

Disturbance and the (surprising?) role of ecosystem engineering in explaining spatial patterns of non-native plant establishment

The Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis is widely considered to be wrong but is rarely tested against alternative hypotheses. It predicts that soil disturbances and herbivory have identical impacts on species richness via identical mechanisms (reduction in biomass and in competition). An alternative hypothesis is that the specific traits of disturbance agents (small mammals) and plants differentially affects richness or abundance of different plant groups. We tested these hypotheses on a degu (Octodon degus) colony in central Chile. We ask whether native and non-native forbs respond differently to degu bioturbation on runways vs. herbivory on grazing lawns. We ask whether this can explain the increase in non-native plants on degu colonies. We found that biopedturbation did not explain the locations of non-native plants. We did not find direct evidence of grazing increasing non-native herbs either, but a grazing effect appears to be mediated by grass, which is the dominant cover. Further, we provide supplementary evidence to support our interpretation that a key mechanism of non-native spread is the formation of dry soil conditions on grazing lawns. Thus ecosystem engineering (alteration of soil qualities) may be an outcome of disturbances, which each interact with specific plant traits, to create the observed pattern of non-native spread in the colony. Based on these results we propose to extend Jentsch & White’s (2019) concept of combined pulse/ disturbance events to the long-term process duality of ecosystem engineering/ disturbance.

Activity density of carabid beetles along an urbanisation gradient

Several works have investigated the impact of urbanisation on carabid activity density using urban-rural gradients. Such works compared activity density recorded from green spaces located in different parts of a city and assigned to categories of increasing urban intensity, which poses two problems: (1) since the gradient is divided into categories, it is impossible to model continuous variations in biotic responses, and (2) sites representative of different urbanisation levels are not true segments of the same ecological continuum. To surpass these problems, we modelled variations in carabid activity density along an urban-rural transect within a single green space extending from the city centre of Rome to rural environments. Carabids were sampled by pitfall traps from sites distributed along the entire gradient. We used breakpoint regressions to model how (1) carabid activity density, (2) carabids/beetles ratio, (3) carabids/insects ratio and (3) carabids/arthropods ratio varied along the gradient. As already observed for various organisms in urban environments, we found that activity density of carabids and their contribution to the abundance of beetles, insects and arthropods, peaked in the middle of the gradient. This supports the intermediate disturbance hypothesis, according to which moderate urbanisation may favour diversity by increasing habitat heterogeneity.

Microbial species interactions determine community diversity in fluctuating environments

Microorganisms often live in environments that fluctuate between mild and harsh conditions. Although such fluctuations are bound to cause local extinctions and affect species diversity, it is unknown how diversity changes at different fluctuation rates and how this relates to changes in species interactions. Here, we use a mathematical model describing the dynamics of resources, toxins, and microbial species in a chemostat where resource supplies switch. Over most of the explored parameter space, species competed, but the strength of competition peaked at either low, high, or intermediate switching rates depending on the species’ sensitivity to toxins. Importantly, however, the strength of competition in species pairs was a good predictor for how community diversity changed over the switching rate. In sum, predicting the effect of environmental switching on competition and community diversity is difficult, as species’ properties matter. This may explain contradicting results of earlier studies on the intermediate disturbance hypothesis.