2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

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5/22/2018 | 3:00 PM - 3:15 PM | EXPOSURE-DEPENDENT TRANSFER OF METALS ACROSS INSECT METAMORPHOSIS DECOUPLES RISK IN LINKED AQUATIC-TERRESTRIAL FOOD WEBS | 320

EXPOSURE-DEPENDENT TRANSFER OF METALS ACROSS INSECT METAMORPHOSIS DECOUPLES RISK IN LINKED AQUATIC-TERRESTRIAL FOOD WEBS

Aquatic insects link food web dynamics across freshwater-terrestrial boundaries and subsidize terrestrial consumer populations. Contaminants can determine the quality and quantity of such subsidies, yet the factors regulating their food web effects at the land-water interface are not well understood. To test how exposure concentrations impact trophic and metamorphic transfer of metals across the freshwater-terrestrial boundary, we conducted a large-scale field study of the accumulation patterns of trace metals through linked stream-forest food webs in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. We found that metals were transferred across trophic and metamorphic steps (i.e., aquatic vegetation to aquatic insect larvae, and larvae to adult) more efficiently from low metal streams, resulting in a disconnect between food web exposure in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Although this pattern originated in the water, the relationship between aquatic and terrestrial tissue concentrations was lost at metamorphosis. These results have implications for both management of linked aquatic-terrestrial food webs and for utility of riparian organisms as indicators of certain aquatic contaminants. Furthermore, our findings bolster our working hypothesis that metamorphosis may be meaningfully viewed as a trophic process.

Anthropogenic
Allochthonous
Food Webs

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Presenters/Authors

Johanna Kraus (), U.S. Geological Survey, jkraus@usgs.gov;