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4 results on '"Animal Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity"'

1. Functional and compositional responses of stream microphytobenthic communities to multiple stressors increase and release in a mesocosm experiment.

Author

Mayombo NAS, Burfeid-Castellanos AM, Vermiert AM, Pimentel IM, Rehsen PM, Dani M, Jasinski C, Spyra MA, Kloster M, Vidaković D, Buchner D, and Beszteri B

Subjects
Salinity, Environmental Monitoring, Stress, Physiological, Rivers, Microalgae physiology, Ecosystem
Abstract

Field observations form the basis of the majority of studies on microphytobenthic algal communities in freshwater ecosystems. Controlled mesocosm experiments data are comparatively uncommon. The few experimental mesocosm studies that have been conducted provide valuable insights into how multiple stressors affect the community structures and photosynthesis-related traits of benthic microalgae. The recovery process after the stressors have subsided, however, has received less attention in mesocosm studies. To close this gap, here we present the results of a riparian mesocosm experiment designed to investigate the effects of reduced flow velocity, increased salinity and increased temperature on microphytobenthic communities. We used a full factorial design with a semi-randomised distribution of treatments consisting of two levels of each stressor (2 × 2 × 2 treatments), with eight replicates making a total of 64 circular mesocosms, allowing a nuanced examination of their individual and combined influences. We aimed to elucidate the responses of microalgae communities seeded from stream water to the applied environmental stressors. Our results showed significant effects of reduced flow velocity and increased temperature on microphytobenthic communities. Recovery after stressor treatment led to a convergence in community composition, with priority effects (hypothesized to reflect competition for substrate between resident and newly arriving immigrant taxa) slowing down community shifts and biomass increase. Our study contributes to the growing body of literature on the ecological dynamics of microphytobenthos and emphasises the importance of rigorous experiments to validate hypotheses. These results encourage further investigation into the nuanced interactions between microphytobenthos and their environment and shed light on the complexity of ecological responses in benthic systems., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Published
2024
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2. Assessing the response of an urban stream ecosystem to salinization under different flow regimes.

Author

Madge Pimentel I, Baikova D, Buchner D, Burfeid Castellanos A, David GM, Deep A, Doliwa A, Hadžiomerović U, Mayombo NAS, Prati S, Spyra MA, Vermiert AM, Beisser D, Dunthorn M, Piggott JJ, Sures B, Tiegs SD, Leese F, and Beermann AJ

Subjects
Animals, Invertebrates physiology, Fresh Water, Sodium Chloride, Ecosystem, Rivers
Abstract

Urban streams are exposed to a variety of anthropogenic stressors. Freshwater salinization is a key stressor in these ecosystems that is predicted to be further exacerbated by climate change, which causes simultaneous changes in flow parameters, potentially resulting in non-additive effects on aquatic ecosystems. However, the effects of salinization and flow velocity on urban streams are still poorly understood as multiple-stressor experiments are often conducted at pristine rather than urban sites. Therefore, we conducted a mesocosm experiment at the Boye River, a recently restored stream located in a highly urbanized area in Western Germany, and applied recurrent pulses of salinity along a gradient (NaCl, 9 h daily of +0 to +2.5 mS/cm) in combination with normal and reduced current velocities (20 cm/s vs. 10 cm/s). Using a comprehensive assessment across multiple organism groups (macroinvertebrates, eukaryotic algae, fungi, parasites) and ecosystem functions (primary production, organic-matter decomposition), we show that flow velocity reduction has a pervasive impact, causing community shifts for almost all assessed organism groups (except fungi) and inhibiting organic-matter decomposition. Salinization affected only dynamic components of community assembly by enhancing invertebrate emigration via drift and reducing fungal reproduction. We caution that the comparatively small impact of salt in our study can be due to legacy effects from past salt pollution by coal mining activities >30 years ago. Nevertheless, our results suggest that urban stream management should prioritize the continuity of a minimum discharge to maintain ecosystem integrity. Our study exemplifies a holistic approach for the assessment of multiple-stressor impacts on streams, which is needed to inform the establishment of a salinity threshold above which mitigation actions must be taken., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Published
2024
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3. Can DNA-Based Ecosystem Assessments Quantify Species Abundance? Testing Primer Bias and Biomass--Sequence Relationships with an Innovative Metabarcoding Protocol.

Author

Elbrecht V and Leese F

Subjects
Animals, DNA analysis, DNA Primers genetics, Diptera genetics, Electron Transport Complex IV genetics, Fresh Water, Haplotypes, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Odonata genetics, Polymerase Chain Reaction, Reproducibility of Results, Species Specificity, Biodiversity, Biomass, DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic methods, Diptera classification, Ecosystem, Odonata classification
Abstract

Metabarcoding is an emerging genetic tool to rapidly assess biodiversity in ecosystems. It involves high-throughput sequencing of a standard gene from an environmental sample and comparison to a reference database. However, no consensus has emerged regarding laboratory pipelines to screen species diversity and infer species abundances from environmental samples. In particular, the effect of primer bias and the detection limit for specimens with a low biomass has not been systematically examined, when processing samples in bulk. We developed and tested a DNA metabarcoding protocol that utilises the standard cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) barcoding fragment to detect freshwater macroinvertebrate taxa. DNA was extracted in bulk, amplified in a single PCR step, and purified, and the libraries were directly sequenced in two independent MiSeq runs (300-bp paired-end reads). Specifically, we assessed the influence of specimen biomass on sequence read abundance by sequencing 31 specimens of a stonefly species with known haplotypes spanning three orders of magnitude in biomass (experiment I). Then, we tested the recovery of 52 different freshwater invertebrate taxa of similar biomass using the same standard barcoding primers (experiment II). Each experiment was replicated ten times to maximise statistical power. The results of both experiments were consistent across replicates. We found a distinct positive correlation between species biomass and resulting numbers of MiSeq reads. Furthermore, we reliably recovered 83% of the 52 taxa used to test primer bias. However, sequence abundance varied by four orders of magnitudes between taxa despite the use of similar amounts of biomass. Our metabarcoding approach yielded reliable results for high-throughput assessments. However, the results indicated that primer efficiency is highly species-specific, which would prevent straightforward assessments of species abundance and biomass in a sample. Thus, PCR-based metabarcoding assessments of biodiversity should rely on presence-absence metrics.

Published
2015
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4. Patterns, processes and vulnerability of Southern Ocean benthos: a decadal leap in knowledge and understanding

Author

Jeroen Ingels, Ann Vanreusel, Dorte Janussen, Chantal De Ridder, Benjamin Pierrat, Saskia Brix, Anne-Nina Lörz, Kari E. Ellingsen, David A. Pearce, Narissa Bax, Moriaki Yasuhara, Torben Riehl, Christoph Held, Claudia P. Arango, Magdalena Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, Gritta Veit-Köhler, Renuka Badhe, David A. Bowden, Myriam Schüller, Charlotte Havermans, Armin Rose, Julian Gutt, Chester J. Sands, Stefano Schiaparelli, Jan M. Strugnell, Florian Leese, Bruno David, Huw J. Griffiths, Anna Soler-Membrives, Anna I. Catarino, Angelika Brandt, Nerida G. Wilson, Kenneth M. Halanych, Adrian G. Glover, Simone N. Brandão, Philippe Dubois, Nils Brenke, David K. A. Barnes, Stefanie Kaiser, Biocenter Grindel and Zoological Museum, University of Hamburg, German Centre for Marine Biodiversity Research (DZMB), Senckenberg am Meer, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research [Wellington] (NIWA), British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Marine Biology Department, Universiteit Gent = Ghent University [Belgium] (UGENT), Animal Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity, Ruhr-Universität Bochum [Bochum], Department of Earth, Environmental and Life Sciences (DISTAV), Universita degli studi di Genova, Natural Environments Program, Queensland Museum, Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, Scott Polar Research Institute, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies [Horbat] (IMAS), University of Tasmania [Hobart, Australia] (UTAS), Zakład Biologii Polarnej i Oceanobiologii, Uniwersytet Łódzki, Wydział Nauk Geograficznych, German Centre for Marine Biodiversity Research [Wilhelmshaven, Allemagne] (DZMB), Laboratoire de Biologie Marine, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Biogéosciences [UMR 6282] [Dijon] (BGS), Université de Bourgogne (UB)-AgroSup Dijon - Institut National Supérieur des Sciences Agronomiques, de l'Alimentation et de l'Environnement-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Fram Centre, Department of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung (AWI), Department of Biological Sciences [Auburn], Auburn University (AU), Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Sektion Marine Evertebraten I, Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum, Unitat de Zoologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Department of Genetics, La Trobe University [Melbourne]-La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), University of California [San Diego] (UC San Diego), University of California-University of California, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong (HKU)-Swire Institute of Marine Science, Department of Earth Sciences [Hong kong], The University of Hong Kong (HKU), Additional funding was gratefully received from the German Research Foundation (DFG, code KA 2857/1-1) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) (S. Kaiser). S.N. Branda˜o was a Alexander von Humboldt fellow and also received support from SYNTHESYS and Encyclopedia of Life. C. Arango acknowledges support from the Australian Antarctic Science Grants (project AA3010) and CAML and the organizers of the Wilhelmshaven workshop for travel funding. NIWA staff was supported by the New Zealand Government under the New Zealand IPYCAML Project (IPY2007-01), project governance provided by the Ministry of Fisheries Science Team and the Ocean Survey 20/20 CAML Advisory Group (Land Information New Zealand, Ministry of Fisheries, Antarctica New Zealand, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and National Institute of Water and Atmosphere Ltd), partfunding was provided by the Ministry of Science and Innovation project COBR1302 (Biodiversity & Biosecurity). BAS staff was supported by the British Antarctic Survey Polar Science for Planet Earth Programme. A. Brandt acknowledges the support of the German Research Foundation (DFG) for support of the ANDEEP and ANDEEP- SYSTCO expeditions and various Southern Ocean projects (Br 1121/22, 1-3, Br 1121/26, 1-4, Br 1121/27-1, Br 1121/28-1, Br 1121/33-1, Br 1121/34-1, Br 1121/37-1, Br 1121/38-1, Br 1121/39-1, Br 1121/40-1, Br 1121/41, 1, Br 1121/43-1, 436 RUS 17/20/02, 436 POL 17/6/03, 436 RUS 17/91/03, 436 RUS 17/103/05, 436 RUS 17/58/06) as well as to the University of Hamburg. J. Ingels and A. Vanreusel acknowledge support from the Belgian Science Policy and the ESF IMCOAST project with contributions of Research Foundation Flanders. F. Leese and C. Held were supported by DFG grants MA 3684/2 and LE 2323/2 within the priority program 1158. B. David and C. De Ridder received support from the Belgian Science Policy (Research project SD/BA/02A, BIANZO II) and ANR Antflocks ANR ANTFLOCKS (No. 07-BLAN-0213-01). D. Janussen thanks the DFG (DFG-Projects JA 1063/14-1.2, JA-1063-17-1), and SYNTHESYS (GB-TAF 885, NL-TAF 11, ES-TAF 1705, AT-TAF 2600) for their support. C. Havermans was financially supported by the Belgian Science Policy with an 'Action II' grant (contract number WI/36/H04). T. Riehl received funding from the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes). N. Wilson's participation was facilitated by Scripps Institution of Oceanography and an NSF OPP grant ANT-1043749., German Centre for Marine Biodiversity Research ( DZMB ), National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd, British Antarctic Survey ( BAS ), Natural Environment Research Council ( NERC ), Ghent University [Belgium] ( UGENT ), Department of Earth, Environmental and Life Sciences ( DISTAV ), Institute for Marine & Antarctic Studies ( IMAS ), Institute for Marine & Antarctic Studies, Uniwersytet Łódzki, Université Libre de Bruxelles [Bruxelles] ( ULB ), Biogéosciences [Dijon] ( BGS ), AgroSup Dijon - Institut National Supérieur des Sciences Agronomiques, de l'Alimentation et de l'Environnement-Université de Bourgogne ( UB ) -Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique ( CNRS ), Norwegian Institute for Nature Research ( NINA ), Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung ( AWI ), Auburn University, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences ( RBINS ), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona [Barcelona] ( UAB ), Scripps Institution of Oceanography ( SIO ), University of California [San Diego] ( UC San Diego ), The University of Hong Kong ( HKU ) -Swire Institute of Marine Science, Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Hong Kong ( HKU ), and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Bourgogne (UB)-AgroSup Dijon - Institut National Supérieur des Sciences Agronomiques, de l'Alimentation et de l'Environnement

Subjects
0106 biological sciences, Environmental change, [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes, Biodiversity, Climate change, Context (language use), Marine life, Aquatic Science, Biology, 010603 evolutionary biology, 01 natural sciences, [SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology, environment/Ecosystems, Ecosystem, 14. Life underwater, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, [ SDE.BE ] Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology, Ecology, business.industry, 010604 marine biology & hydrobiology, Environmental resource management, 15. Life on land, Natural resource, [ SDV.EE.ECO ] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology, environment/Ecosystems, [ SDE.MCG ] Environmental Sciences/Global Changes, Oceanography, 13. Climate action, Benthic zone, [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology, business, Biologie
Abstract

23 pages; International audience; In the Southern Ocean, that is areas south of the Polar Front, long-term oceanographic cooling, geographic separation, development of isolating current and wind systems, tectonic drift and fluctuation of ice sheets amongst others have resulted in a highly endemic benthic fauna, which is generally adapted to the long-lasting, relatively stable environmental conditions. The Southern Ocean benthic ecosystem has been subject to minimal direct anthropogenic impact (compared to elsewhere) and thus presents unique opportunities to study biodiversity and its responses to environmental change. Since the beginning of the century, research under the Census of Marine Life and International Polar Year initiatives, as well as Scientific Committee of Antarctic Research biology programmes, have considerably advanced our understanding of the Southern Ocean benthos. In this paper, we evaluate recent progress in Southern Ocean benthic research and identify priorities for future research. Intense efforts to sample and describe the benthic fauna, coupled with coordination of information in global databases, have greatly enhanced understanding of the biodiversity and biogeography of the region. Some habitats, such as chemosynthetic systems, have been sampled for the first time, while application of new technologies and methods are yielding new insights into ecosystem structure and function. These advances have also highlighted important research gaps, notably the likely consequences of climate change. In a time of potentially pivotal environmental change, one of the greatest challenges is to balance conservation with increasing demands on the Southern Ocean's natural resources and services. In this context, the characterization of Southern Ocean biodiversity is an urgent priority requiring timely and accurate species identifications, application of standardized sampling and reporting procedures, as well as cooperation between disciplines and nations.

Published
2013
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