EARLY HEARING DETECTION AND INTERVENTION VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
MARCH 2-5, 2021
(Virtually the same conference, without elevators, airplane tickets, or hotel room keys)
5/22/2019 | 9:45 AM - 10:00 AM | DROUGHT-INDUCED MASS MORTALITY OF FRESHWATER MUSSELS ALTERS ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION: A MESOCOSM EXPERIMENT | 151 G
DROUGHT-INDUCED MASS MORTALITY OF FRESHWATER MUSSELS ALTERS ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION: A MESOCOSM EXPERIMENT
Droughts are becoming more frequent and intense globally, threatening organisms with limited mobility. As ecosystem engineers, the loss of freshwater mussels has profound impacts on stream ecosystems; as sedentary animals, mussels are sensitive to drought. Thus, we conducted a mesocosm experiment that simulated a mussel die-off and responses of measures of ecosystem function. We created three scenarios: control mesocosms, mesocosms with a live mussel community, and mesocosms with a mussel community that experienced a die-off. We measured water column nutrients (NH4-N and SRP), benthic primary production, decomposition, and the macroinvertebrate community before and after the mussel mortality event. After die-off, nutrients increased in mortality mesocosms with ammonium increasing by 94%. The rapid nutrient release following mussel mortality stimulated both autotrophs and heterotrophs. Benthic primary production and organic matter decomposition increased in the mortality mesocosms. We combined our results with a literature review to build a conceptual model of how unionid mass mortality events impact ecosystem function across multiple time scales. We predict that droughts simplify the mussel community, which reduces ecosystem function for years to decades through the loss of filtration capacity, nutrient recycling and storage, and habitat.
- ClimateChange
- Nutrients
- Mesocosm
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Presenters/Authors
Traci DuBose
(), University of Oklahoma, tracipopejoy@ou.edu;
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Carla Atkinson
(), The University of Alabama, carla.l.atkinson@ua.edu;
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Caryn Vaughn
(), University of Oklahoma, cvaughn@ou.edu;
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Stephen W. Golladay
(), J.W.Jones Research Center, steve.golladay@jonesctr.org;
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