2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference
March 13 - 15, 2022
6/07/2017 | 9:30 AM - 9:45 AM | Effects of macroconsumers on benthic communities, primary productivity, and sediment dynamics in tropical karst streams with varying degrees of riparian cover | 306B
Effects of macroconsumers on benthic communities, primary productivity, and sediment dynamics in tropical karst streams with varying degrees of riparian cover
Trophic cascades in streams manifest through addition or loss of consumers. Few have addressed experimentally the effects of land use on macroconsumers as well the consequences of consumer loss on trophic interactions. We sought to investigate how trophic cascades induced by macroconsumers interact with land use change in karst streams of southwestern Brazil. Macroconsumers were experimentally excluded from benthic habitats in streams that varied in the extent of riparian forest cover to determine how exclusion affected benthic invertebrates and periphyton. Macroconsumer exclusion resulted in suppressed chlorophyll-a concentrations and reduced biodiversity in assemblages of primary producers. We detected no treatment effect on periphyton dry mass and benthic invertebrates. Most parameters did not change along a gradient of riparian vegetation cover, suggesting that the effects of land use change in these hydrologically complex watersheds may not be strong enough strong effects. Trophic interactions associated with the behavior of invertebrate grazers could have contributed to the patterns that we observed. Some groups associated with karstic biogenesis may have responded to the absence of predators by constructing retreats more freely, a finding supported by subsequent detection of elevated CaCO3 deposition in treatment replicates.
- C02 Fish and Other Aquatic Vertebrates
- C11 Community Ecology
- S09 The importance of environmental gradients for the advance of tropical stream ecology
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Presenters/Authors
Ryan Utz
(), Chatham University, utz.ryan@gmail.com;
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Elaine Corrêa
(), Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, elaineccorrea@yahoo.com.br;
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Fabio de Oliveira Roque
(), Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, roque.eco@gmail.com;
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