• myGriffith
    • Staff portal
    • Contact Us⌄
      • Future student enquiries 1800 677 728
      • Current student enquiries 1800 154 055
      • International enquiries +61 7 3735 6425
      • General enquiries 07 3735 7111
      • Online enquiries
      • Staff phonebook
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Journal articles
    • View Item
    • Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Journal articles
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

  • All of Griffith Research Online
    • Communities & Collections
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • This Collection
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • Statistics

  • Most Popular Items
  • Statistics by Country
  • Most Popular Authors
  • Support

  • Contact us
  • FAQs
  • Admin login

  • Login
  • Drought alters the functional stability of stream invertebrate communities through time

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Leigh232182.pdf (595.2Kb)
    Author(s)
    Leigh, Catherine
    Aspin, Thomas WH
    Matthews, Thomas J
    Rolls, Robert J
    Ledger, Mark E
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Rolls, Rob J.
    Leigh, Catherine
    Year published
    2019
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Aim: In fresh waters, most biogeographical understanding of how extreme events such as drought modify biodiversity and ecosystem functioning derives from static, spatial comparisons of ecological communities, between intact and disturbed sites or along stress gradients. Impacts of drought on the development of ecological communities over time remain poorly resolved, with information on parallel trends in community structure and function particularly scarce. In theory, drought could progressively eliminate both species and functional traits, rendering communities increasingly taxonomically and functionally nested subsets of ...
    View more >
    Aim: In fresh waters, most biogeographical understanding of how extreme events such as drought modify biodiversity and ecosystem functioning derives from static, spatial comparisons of ecological communities, between intact and disturbed sites or along stress gradients. Impacts of drought on the development of ecological communities over time remain poorly resolved, with information on parallel trends in community structure and function particularly scarce. In theory, drought could progressively eliminate both species and functional traits, rendering communities increasingly taxonomically and functionally nested subsets of their pre-existing counterparts. Alternatively, drought could create new niche opportunities, producing a continuous turnover of species and traits, or simply constrain natural community succession. Location: Dorset, UK. Taxon: Aquatic invertebrates. Methods: We studied temporal changes in community structure and function in artificial streams over 2 years, comparing drought (frequent drying) with control (constant flow) conditions. Temporal beta diversity was partitioned into turnover and nestedness components, calculated using both presence–absence and abundance data, and analysed using time-lag and null modelling approaches. Results: Community development was comparable taxonomically under control and drought conditions, driven primarily by temporal turnover of species. Under control conditions, corresponding trends in functional composition were not apparent, and species turnover was characterized by the progressive replacement of some species by others of equivalent abundance. By contrast, species turnover in disturbed communities was accompanied by both functional turnover and greater loss of individuals, indicating that new colonists were not equivalent, either functionally or numerically, to those they replaced. Furthermore, functional dissimilarities between time points were greatest under drought, and more similar in magnitude to taxonomic dissimilarities, implying that drying reduced the stability and redundancy of functional attributes. Main conclusion: A shift to drier climate could disrupt the natural development of stream community structure, and undermine functional stability, at local and biogeographical scales, with potentially significant consequences for ecosystem services provisioning in fresh waters.
    View less >
    Journal Title
    Journal of Biogeography
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.13638
    Copyright Statement
    © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Drought alters the functional stability of stream invertebrate communities through time, Journal of Biogeography, Vol. 00:1–13, 2019, which has been published in final form at 10.1111/jbi.13638. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving (http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-828039.html)
    Subject
    Earth Sciences
    Environmental Sciences
    Biological Sciences
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/385900
    Collection
    • Journal articles

    Footer

    Disclaimer

    • Privacy policy
    • Copyright matters
    • CRICOS Provider - 00233E

    Tagline

    • Gold Coast
    • Logan
    • Brisbane - Queensland, Australia
    First Peoples of Australia
    • Aboriginal
    • Torres Strait Islander