2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

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5/27/2021 | 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Shifts in Invertebrate Network Structure Correspond to Nutrient Concentrations in Streams of Central Ohio, USA | Virtual Platform

Shifts in Invertebrate Network Structure Correspond to Nutrient Concentrations in Streams of Central Ohio, USA

Food webs, which describe biotic interactions and integrate energy pathways within ecosystems, represent one of the principal categories of ecological networks. However, the impacts of nutrient enrichment – a global stressor in aquatic ecosystems – on key characteristics of ecological trophic networks remain largely unresolved. We assessed associations between nutrient enrichment (total nitrogen [N], total phosphorus [P]), diversity indices, land use (% agriculture), and aquatic invertebrate network characteristics at fourteen stream reaches in the Upper Big Walnut Creek watershed, Ohio (USA) across three seasons. Results revealed that both total abundance and Shannon’s diversity were not significantly associated with total N, total P, or agriculture land use. However, assemblage evenness was positively associated with total P, while species richness was positively associated with agricultural land use. When considering trophic network properties, agricultural land use was positively associated with link density, but not connectance or compartmentalization. Total N and total P had a negative relationship with compartmentalization, but nutrients had no relationship with link density or connectance. These finding suggest that variability in nutrients and surrounding land use patterns can have impacts on ecological invertebrate networks. Understanding how ecological networks respond to variability in nutrient concentrations, and associated land use changes, is critical for future the management and conservation of ecosystems in a eutrophic world.

Nutrients
Urban streams
Stressor

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Presenters/Authors

S. Mažeika P. Sullivan (), The Ohio State University, sullivan.191@osu.edu;