EARLY HEARING DETECTION AND INTERVENTION VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
MARCH 2-5, 2021
(Virtually the same conference, without elevators, airplane tickets, or hotel room keys)
5/22/2018 | 10:15 AM - 10:30 AM | HURRICANE IMPACTS TO A TROPICAL STREAM ECOSYSTEM IN THE MOUNTAINS OF PUERTO RICO. | 410 B
HURRICANE IMPACTS TO A TROPICAL STREAM ECOSYSTEM IN THE MOUNTAINS OF PUERTO RICO.
Tropical ecosystems are subject to a variety of natural disturbances, with hurricanes among the most extreme. While the importance of hurricanes in structuring terrestrial environments is widely acknowledged, impacts on stream ecosystems are less understood. During 2017, Puerto Rico was impacted by two major Hurricanes (Irma and Maria, both category 4) resulting in major damage to forest and stream ecosystems. In this study, we use our ongoing research, as well as our long-term data sets (2009-2017), to assess hurricane impacts upon a second-order stream draining the El Yunque National Forest. Hurricanes significantly reduced canopy cover over the stream. Hurricanes caused a short-lived input of leaf-litter fall, 8-fold the long-term average. Organic biofilm (AFDM) and chlorophyll-a barely responded to post-hurricane increased light availability, suggesting that consumers or disturbance control primary productivity. Macroinvertebrate assemblages were severely impacted, with scrapers being favored by the limited response in algae after the hurricanes. Finally, shrimps showed only slight responses to the changes in the ecosystem. Our results highlight the dramatic effects of hurricanes on tropical streams, which serves to underline the need for long-term data to understand how stream ecosystems respond to unpredictable extreme events.
- Tropical Rivers
- Climate Change
- Ecosystem
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Presenters/Authors
Pablo E. Gutiérrez-Fonseca
(), University of Costa Rica, pabloe.gutierrezfonseca@gmail.com;
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Alonso RamÃrez
(), North Carolina State University, alonso.ramirez@ncsu.edu;
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Catherine Pringle
(), University of Georgia, cpringle@uga.edu;
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Pedro J Torres
(), Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, torresp@denison.edu;
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Alan Covich
(), University of Georgia, alanc@uga.edu;
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William H. McDowell
(), University of New Hampshire, bill.mcdowell@unh.edu;
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Todd Crowl
(), Florida International University, facrowl@gmail.com;
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Omar Perez
(), University of Puerto Rico, omar.perez@upr.edu;
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