1. Increasing climate‐driven taxonomic homogenization but functional differentiation among river macroinvertebrate assemblages
- Author
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Théophile L. Mouton, Fabrice Stephenson, Jonathan D. Tonkin, Piet Verburg, Mathieu Floury, MARine Biodiversity Exploitation and Conservation (UMR MARBEC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY CHRISTCHURCH NZL, Partenaires IRSTEA, Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA), Laboratoire d'Ecologie des Hydrosystèmes Naturels et Anthropisés (LEHNA), Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL), and Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État (ENTPE)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,Environmental change ,Climate ,Population ,Homogenization (climate) ,Biodiversity ,Climate change ,010603 evolutionary biology ,01 natural sciences ,Freshwater ecosystem ,diversity ,human disturbance ,Rivers ,Environmental Chemistry ,Ecosystem ,14. Life underwater ,education ,ComputingMilieux_MISCELLANEOUS ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,General Environmental Science ,Global and Planetary Change ,education.field_of_study ,β ,Ecology ,Resistance (ecology) ,15. Life on land ,functional diversity ,biotic homogenization ,climate change ,Geography ,13. Climate action ,[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology ,‐ ,New Zealand ,freshwater macroinvertebrates - Abstract
Global change is increasing biotic homogenisation globally, which modifies the functioning of ecosystems. While tendencies towards taxonomic homogenisation in biological communities have been extensively studied, functional homogenisation remains an understudied facet of biodiversity. Here, we tested four hypotheses related to long‐term changes (1991 ‐ 2016) in the taxonomic and functional arrangement of freshwater macroinvertebrate assemblages across space and possible drivers of these changes. Using data collected annually at 64 river sites in mainland New Zealand, we related temporal changes in taxonomic and functional spatial β‐diversity, and the contribution of individual sites to β‐diversity, to a set of global, regional, catchment and reach‐scale environmental descriptors. We observed long‐term, mostly climate induced, temporal trends towards taxonomic homogenisation but functional differentiation among macroinvertebrate assemblages. These changes were mainly driven by replacements of species and functional traits among assemblages, rather than nested species loss. In addition, there was no difference between the mean rate of change in the taxonomic and functional facets of β‐diversity. Climatic processes governed overall population and community changes in these freshwater ecosystems, but were amplified by multiple anthropogenic, topographic, and biotic drivers of environmental change, acting widely across the landscape. The functional diversification of communities could potentially provide communities with greater stability, resistance, and resilience capacity to environmental change, despite ongoing taxonomic homogenisation. Therefore, our study highlights a need to further understand temporal trajectories in both taxonomic and functional components of species communities, which could enable a clearer picture of how biodiversity and ecosystems will respond to future global changes.
- Published
- 2020