2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference

March 13 - 15, 2022

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5/24/2021  |   2:00 PM - 3:30 PM   |  Temporal dynamics and stability of aquatic macroinvertebrate assemblages in lowland tropical streams in Costa Rica   |  Virtual Platform

Temporal dynamics and stability of aquatic macroinvertebrate assemblages in lowland tropical streams in Costa Rica

Understanding how communities change over time is a key goal in Ecology, as it allows us to elucidate the functioning of ecosystems. Long-term data is essential to accurately evaluate natural variability, yet multi-year data is not easily available for tropical streams. Here, we evaluated assemblage dynamics in two Neotropical lowland streams using a unique long-term (20y) dataset. We considered the following questions: 1) what is the turnover of macroinvertebrates?, 2) are variations in macroinvertebrate composition synchronous or asynchronous?, and 3) what is the trajectory of the assemblages throughout time? We used analyses of community stability and temporal dynamics to evaluate our long-term data. Our results demonstrate a high turnover rate in both streams (mean: 57%, range from 14.4% to 90.0%). Synchrony measurements revealed that assemblages were asynchronous, suggesting that the organisms vary independently of one another. The rate of community change in our streams indicates that the assemblage has a directional change, increasing dissimilarity over time (slope > 0). Our findings suggest that macroinvertebrate assemblages in tropical streams are highly variable and that temporal patterns are nearly stochastic. Therefore, these tropical macroinvertebrate assemblages are in a loosely stable equilibrium.

  • Stream
  • Tropical
  • Tropical streams and lakes

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Presenters/Authors

Pablo E. Gutiérrez-Fonseca (), University of Costa Rica, pabloe.gutierrezfonseca@gmail.com;


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Catherine Pringle (), University of Georgia, cpringle@uga.edu;


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Alonso Ramírez (), North Carolina State University, alonso.ramirez@ncsu.edu;


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