Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Huan Zhang, Peiyu Zhang, Huan Wang, Jorge Garcia Molinos, Lars-Anders Hansson, Liang He, Min Zhang, Jun Xu
Summary: The experiment showed that phosphorus addition weakened top-down effects of cyclopoid copepod predators on rotifer prey, while warming strengthened these effects, leading to a reduction in rotifer abundance. Warming increased susceptibility of plankton prey to predator effects but reduced sensitivity to nutrient enrichment. This suggests that cyclopoid copepods are likely to benefit more from nutrient enrichment and climate warming at the expense of rotifer prey.
GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Welly Qwabe, Deena Pillay
Summary: Allochthonous transfers are common in marine ecosystems, but mismatches between recipient ecosystems and allochthony can occur. This study investigates the driving processes in coastal ecosystems and finds that seasonal offshore upwelling on the west coast of South Africa does not strengthen bottom-up regulation in intertidal lagoonal sandflat ecosystems. Instead, these ecosystems show higher levels of response variables during winter downwelling periods. This mismatch may be related to increases in densities of endobenthic burrowing sandprawns, which are key ecosystem engineers. The findings suggest that these engineers play an important role in determining responses to marine allochthonous inputs and the degree of donor control in recipient ecosystems.
MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Shuntaro Koizumi, Mohammed Hamdan, Isolde Callisto Puts, Ann-Kristin Bergstrom, Jan Karlsson, Par Bystrom
Summary: Globally, lakes are experiencing warming and browning due to climate change, which significantly affects their biogeochemical properties and all organisms, including invertebrate consumers. This study used a large-scale experimental pond system to investigate the combined effect of warming and increased input of terrestrial and coloured dissolved organic carbon on zooplankton and benthic macroinvertebrate biomass and composition during autumn and spring. The results suggest that consumer responses to warming and browning during autumn are mostly taxon-specific and may lead to less overall changes in consumer biomass.
FRESHWATER BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Kiara Lange, Jean-Francois Maguer, Stephanie Reynaud, Christine Ferrier-Pages
Summary: Global warming poses a double threat to benthic organisms, as they reach their thermal limits and may starve to death during heat waves. Dissolved nutrients, which can reach high concentrations in temperate regions, are an important alternative food source. However, a study on Mediterranean gorgonians found that they have low uptake rates of both dissolved inorganic and organic nutrients, primarily relying on plankton and detrital material for nitrogen requirements. This suggests that temperate octocorals may be at high risk of severe starvation in the future.
FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Limnology
Elka T. Porter, Jeffrey C. Cornwell
Summary: Benthic and pelagic processes are closely connected in shallow-water environments, but simulating their coupling in mesocosm experiments is challenging due to difficulties in mimicking realistic water column and bottom turbulence simultaneously. However, studies on benthic-pelagic coupling mesocosm experiments highlight the importance of considering realistic physics in these experiments. Mesocosm approaches that accurately represent both water column and bottom turbulence can provide a better understanding of feedback processes associated with biogeochemical, food web, and habitat shifts. Such experiments can also address gaps in our knowledge regarding nutrient and organic matter fluxes between benthic habitats and the water column.
LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Haotian Wang, Diexuan Hu, Wu Wen, Xiaohan Lin, Xinghui Xia
Summary: In this study, it was found that warming increases the bioaccumulation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in pelagic organisms due to increased water concentrations. However, warming did not significantly affect PFAS accumulation in benthic organisms, except for certain types, which was consistent with declined sediment concentrations. The findings highlight the importance of considering the media-specific effects of temperature on PFAS concentrations in ecological risk assessments under climate change.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Mathematics, Applied
Jimin Zhang, Pingping Cong, Meng Fans
Summary: A PDE-ODE coupled dynamic model is proposed to describe the asymmetric competition for light and nutrients between producers in a poorly mixed pelagic habitat and producers in a well-mixed benthic habitat. Several basic ecological reproductive indices are rigorously derived for pelagic producers and benthic producers by analyzing nonnegative steady-state solutions. The possible scenarios of the asymmetric competition are explicitly formulated. The numerical bifurcation diagrams show that the environmental parameters affect the asymmetric competition and cause the regime switch between pelagic and benthic producers. The results reveal the role of spatial heterogeneity of pelagic producers and some characteristics of the asymmetric resource competition.
SIAM JOURNAL ON APPLIED MATHEMATICS
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Vinita Vijayaraj, Nora Kipferler, Herwig Stibor, Joey Allen, Franz Hoelker, Martin Laviale, Josephine Leflaive, Gregorio Alejandro Lopez Moreira Mazacotte, Bastian Herbert Polst, Mechthild Schmitt-Jansen, Sabine Hilt, Elisabeth Maria Gross
Summary: Upscaling from indoor microcosms to outdoor mesocosms is challenging due to the differences in water types and biodiversity, which may mask the stressor effects observed in controlled experiments.
Article
Ecology
Phumlile Cotiyane-Pondo, Thomas G. Bornman, Przemyslaw Dabek
Summary: The abundance and species richness of marine epilithic diatoms along the South African coastline are highly variable. A study conducted on Bird Island in Algoa Bay revealed the influence of guano from resident seabirds on diatom composition and distribution, with a dominance of benthic diatoms in the surf zone. The interplay between benthic and planktonic diatoms in the nearshore environment gives insight into their contribution to the intertidal and subtidal food web.
REGIONAL STUDIES IN MARINE SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Biology
Ignacio Garrido, Heather L. L. Hawk, Paulina Bruning, Luis Miguel Pardo, Ladd E. E. Johnson
Summary: While previous studies have shown the negative impacts of ice scouring on the seabed and its role in shaping benthic communities in Antarctica, this study focuses on the potential habitat created by ice pits and the drift algae accumulated within them. The research reveals that ice pits provide underestimated ecological subsidies to other benthic organisms.
Article
Ecology
Jeremy M. Testa, Jadran Faganeli, Michele Giani, Mark J. Brush, Cinzia De Vittor, Walter R. Boynton, Stefano Covelli, Ryan J. Woodland, Nives Kovac, W. Michael Kemp
Summary: This study compares the pelagic-benthic interactions in the northern Adriatic Sea and Chesapeake Bay, finding higher phytoplankton net primary production and benthic respiration rates in the Chesapeake Bay. Additionally, a higher proportion of organic matter is deposited in sediments in the Chesapeake Bay compared to the northern Adriatic Sea. The study suggests the need for sustained monitoring and numerical simulations to better understand and predict changes in pelagic-benthic interactions under future climate scenarios.
COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS IN TRANSITION: A Comparative Analysis of the Northern Adriatic and Chesapeake Bay
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Sebastian Diehl, Gustaf Thomsson, Maria Kahlert, Junwen Guo, Jan Karlsson, Antonia Liess
FRESHWATER BIOLOGY
(2018)
Article
Marine & Freshwater Biology
Francisco Rivera Vasconcelos, Rosemberg Fernandes Menezes, Jose Luiz Attayde
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Francisco Rivera Vasconcelos, Sebastian Diehl, Patricia Rodriguez, Per Hedstrom, Jan Karlsson, Paer Bystroem
GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY
(2019)
Article
Limnology
Dominique Beatrice Maier, Sebastian Diehl, Christian Bigler
LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY
(2019)
Article
Ecology
Jonas Wickman, Sebastian Diehl, Ake Brannstrom
Article
Marine & Freshwater Biology
Patricia Rodriguez, Gabriela Gonzalez Garraza, Victoria Garcia, Maria Granitto, Julio Escobar
Article
Marine & Freshwater Biology
Javier Hernan Rojo, Patricia Rodriguez, Claudia Clementina Boy
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Enzo Gronchi, Klaus D. Johnk, Dietmar Straile, Sebastian Diehl, Frank Peeters
Summary: This study presents a validated modeling approach to quantitatively predict the onset of spring algal bloom (OAB) and systematically assess the processes controlling its timing on a continental scale. The study found that OAB timing is controlled by different factors across lake types and climate zones, and it is sensitive to global warming and browning in different ways.
GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Maria Granitto, Soledad Diodato, Patricia Rodriguez
Summary: The rapid and unorganized population growth in Ushuaia, Argentina has negatively impacted the water quality of the city's three main water courses due to urban expansion and lack of infrastructure for services like sewage treatment. The Fuegian Water Quality Index (F_WQI) developed as a monitoring tool, revealed very poor water quality in areas with high urbanization and wastewater discharges, while indicating very good water quality in less urbanized areas. Including Periphyton Chlorophyll-a in water quality indices proved to increase the sensitivity of monitoring efforts in temperate rivers and streams.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Sebastian Diehl, Stella A. Berger, Wojciech Uszko, Herwig Stibor
Summary: In many ecosystems, consumers and resources may exhibit temporal mismatches in response to warming, leading to differences in seasonal demand and availability. However, the mismatch in food quality is an equally pervasive but less recognized threat to the temporal coherence of consumer-resource interactions.
Article
Ecology
Enzo Gronchi, Dietmar Straile, Sebastian Diehl, Klaus D. Johnk, Frank Peeters
Summary: Climate warming can lead to desynchronization of co-evolved consumer-resource phenologies, resulting in trophic mismatch and altered ecosystem dynamics. Our simulations reveal large geographic and lake-specific variations in phenological synchrony, highlighting the need for further research on its ecological consequences.