2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

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6/06/2017 | 11:00 AM - 11:15 AM | TESTING EFFECTS OF LARGE CONSUMERS ON STREAM ECOSYSTEM STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION: SYNTHESIS ACROSS THE SCALER PROJECT | 302B

TESTING EFFECTS OF LARGE CONSUMERS ON STREAM ECOSYSTEM STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION: SYNTHESIS ACROSS THE SCALER PROJECT

Large stream consumers (e.g., fish, crayfish, amphibians) are particularly vulnerable to human-induced extirpation. As part of the MacroSystems Biology SCALER project, we conducted a paired consumer removal/control experiment in streams encompassing 7 unique biomes to test whether changes in macroconsumer communities would affect stream structure and function. We compared consumer communities (biomass, trophic position) to measured changes in ecosystem functions (ecosystem respiration [ER], gross primary production [GPP], ammonium [NH4] uptake) and basal resources (benthic organic matter, chlorophyll-a, macroinvertebrates) at both patch and whole-reach scales. Across all biomes, we found no consistent reach-scale changes in ecosystem functions following consumer exclusion. At the patch scale, there were no consistent changes in structure or function between paired exclusion and control treatments across biomes. Ongoing analyses are assessing cross-biome effects of different consumer feeding groups on ecosystem rates, to test whether algivorous macroconsumers reduce GPP via chlorophyll-a and whether top-down effects of insectivorous macroconsumers ultimately affect GPP, ER, and NH4 uptake via changes in macroinvertebrate communities or biomass.

C10 Biogeochemistry
C02 Fish and Other Aquatic Vertebrates
S29 Macrosystem Ecology of Aquatic Systems

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Presenters/Authors

Kaitlin J. Farrell (), University of Georgia, farrellkj2@gmail.com;