2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

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5/21/2018 | 10:00 AM - 10:15 AM | EFFECTS OF DROUGHT AND HURRICANE DISTURBANCES ON MACROBRACHIUM DOMINATED FOOD WEBS: RESPONSES TO HIGHLY VARIABLE FLOWS | 420 A

EFFECTS OF DROUGHT AND HURRICANE DISTURBANCES ON MACROBRACHIUM DOMINATED FOOD WEBS: RESPONSES TO HIGHLY VARIABLE FLOWS

Climatic changes such as the number, intensity, and frequency of extreme events in the Caribbean can affect benthic species assemblages. Impacts on stream food webs are likely to change along elevational gradients as some species become more dominant than others in response to droughts, floods, and hurricanes. Studies of freshwater shrimps (Macrobrachium carcinus, M. crenulatum, M. faustinum, M. heterochirus) indicate changes in patterns of upstream movement by adults. These shifts in locations are responses to major differences in long-term flow regimes from 1997 to 2017. Weekly sampling of headwater pools in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico, indicate the abundance and dominance of different species are affected by highly variable flows. The most recent disturbances (drought in 2015 and Hurricanes Irma and Maria) created different environmental conditions that affected upstream movement. The potential for major changes in these patterns of species distributions is expected to increase if partial barriers to movement such as organic and inorganic debris dams occur during high wind and high rainfall events. Major disturbances such as droughts, hurricanes, intense rainfall and associated landslides are predicted to increase over the next several decades.

Food Webs
Tropical Rivers
Life History

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Presenters/Authors

Alan Covich (), University of Georgia, alanc@uga.edu;