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Functionally reversible impacts of disturbances on lake food webs linked to spatial and seasonal dependencies

Urrutia-Cordero, Pablo LU ; Langenheder, Silke ; Striebel, Maren ; Eklöv, Peter ; Angeler, David G. ; Bertilsson, Stefan ; Csitári, Bianka ; Hansson, Lars-Anders LU orcid ; Kelpsiene, Egle LU and Laudon, Hjalmar , et al. (2021) In Ecology 102(4).
Abstract
Increasing human impact on the environment is causing drastic changes in disturbance regimes and how they prevail over time. Of increasing relevance is to further our understanding on biological responses to pulse disturbances (short duration) and how they interact with other ongoing press disturbances (constantly present). Because the temporal and spatial contexts of single experiments often limit our ability to generalize results across space and time, we conducted a modularized mesocosm experiment replicated in space (five lakes along a latitudinal gradient in Scandinavia) and time (two seasons, spring and summer) to generate general predictions on how the functioning and composition of multitrophic plankton communities (zoo‐, phyto‐... (More)
Increasing human impact on the environment is causing drastic changes in disturbance regimes and how they prevail over time. Of increasing relevance is to further our understanding on biological responses to pulse disturbances (short duration) and how they interact with other ongoing press disturbances (constantly present). Because the temporal and spatial contexts of single experiments often limit our ability to generalize results across space and time, we conducted a modularized mesocosm experiment replicated in space (five lakes along a latitudinal gradient in Scandinavia) and time (two seasons, spring and summer) to generate general predictions on how the functioning and composition of multitrophic plankton communities (zoo‐, phyto‐ and bacterioplankton) respond to pulse disturbances acting either in isolation or combined with press disturbances. As pulse disturbance, we used short‐term changes in fish presence, and as press disturbance, we addressed the ongoing reduction in light availability caused by increased cloudiness and lake browning in many boreal and subarctic lakes. First, our results show that the top‐down pulse disturbance had the strongest effects on both functioning and composition of the three trophic levels across sites and seasons, with signs for interactive impacts with the bottom‐up press disturbance on phytoplankton communities. Second, community composition responses to disturbances were highly divergent between lakes and seasons: temporal accumulated community turnover of the same trophic level either increased (destabilization) or decreased (stabilization) in response to the disturbances compared to control conditions. Third, we found functional recovery from the pulse disturbances to be frequent at the end of most experiments. In a broader context, these results demonstrate that top‐down, pulse disturbances, either alone or with additional constant stress upon primary producers caused by bottom‐up disturbances, can induce profound but often functionally reversible changes across multiple trophic levels, which are strongly linked to spatial and temporal context dependencies. Furthermore, the identified dichotomy of disturbance effects on the turnover in community composition demonstrates the potential of disturbances to either stabilize or destabilize biodiversity patterns over time across a wide range of environmental conditions. (Less)
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Ecology
volume
102
issue
4
article number
e03283
pages
16 pages
publisher
Ecological Society of America
external identifiers
  • pmid:33428769
  • scopus:85101851689
ISSN
0012-9658
DOI
10.1002/ecy.3283
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
7a16e526-061a-46c1-8f2b-60ab3e92f360
date added to LUP
2021-01-15 15:33:48
date last changed
2023-11-20 21:11:24
@article{7a16e526-061a-46c1-8f2b-60ab3e92f360,
  abstract     = {{Increasing human impact on the environment is causing drastic changes in disturbance regimes and how they prevail over time. Of increasing relevance is to further our understanding on biological responses to pulse disturbances (short duration) and how they interact with other ongoing press disturbances (constantly present). Because the temporal and spatial contexts of single experiments often limit our ability to generalize results across space and time, we conducted a modularized mesocosm experiment replicated in space (five lakes along a latitudinal gradient in Scandinavia) and time (two seasons, spring and summer) to generate general predictions on how the functioning and composition of multitrophic plankton communities (zoo‐, phyto‐ and bacterioplankton) respond to pulse disturbances acting either in isolation or combined with press disturbances. As pulse disturbance, we used short‐term changes in fish presence, and as press disturbance, we addressed the ongoing reduction in light availability caused by increased cloudiness and lake browning in many boreal and subarctic lakes. First, our results show that the top‐down pulse disturbance had the strongest effects on both functioning and composition of the three trophic levels across sites and seasons, with signs for interactive impacts with the bottom‐up press disturbance on phytoplankton communities. Second, community composition responses to disturbances were highly divergent between lakes and seasons: temporal accumulated community turnover of the same trophic level either increased (destabilization) or decreased (stabilization) in response to the disturbances compared to control conditions. Third, we found functional recovery from the pulse disturbances to be frequent at the end of most experiments. In a broader context, these results demonstrate that top‐down, pulse disturbances, either alone or with additional constant stress upon primary producers caused by bottom‐up disturbances, can induce profound but often functionally reversible changes across multiple trophic levels, which are strongly linked to spatial and temporal context dependencies. Furthermore, the identified dichotomy of disturbance effects on the turnover in community composition demonstrates the potential of disturbances to either stabilize or destabilize biodiversity patterns over time across a wide range of environmental conditions.}},
  author       = {{Urrutia-Cordero, Pablo and Langenheder, Silke and Striebel, Maren and Eklöv, Peter and Angeler, David G. and Bertilsson, Stefan and Csitári, Bianka and Hansson, Lars-Anders and Kelpsiene, Egle and Laudon, Hjalmar and Lundgren, Maria and Osman, Omneya Ahmed and Parkefelt, Linda and Hillebrand, Helmut}},
  issn         = {{0012-9658}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  number       = {{4}},
  publisher    = {{Ecological Society of America}},
  series       = {{Ecology}},
  title        = {{Functionally reversible impacts of disturbances on lake food webs linked to spatial and seasonal dependencies}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3283}},
  doi          = {{10.1002/ecy.3283}},
  volume       = {{102}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}