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Functional diversity and community assembly of river invertebrates show globally consistent responses to decreasing glacier cover

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, pages 325–333 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Global change threatens invertebrate biodiversity and its central role in numerous ecosystem functions and services. Functional trait analyses have been advocated to uncover global mechanisms behind biodiversity responses to environmental change, but the application of this approach for invertebrates is underdeveloped relative to other organism groups. From an evaluation of 363 records comprising >1.23 million invertebrates collected from rivers across nine biogeographic regions on three continents, consistent responses of community trait composition and diversity to replicated gradients of reduced glacier cover are demonstrated. After accounting for a systematic regional effect of latitude, the processes shaping river invertebrate functional diversity are globally consistent. Analyses nested within individual regions identified an increase in functional diversity as glacier cover decreases. Community assembly models demonstrated that dispersal limitation was the dominant process underlying these patterns, although environmental filtering was also evident in highly glacierized basins. These findings indicate that predictable mechanisms govern river invertebrate community responses to decreasing glacier cover globally.

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Fig. 1: FCA results.
Fig. 2: GAMM results for functional groups 1 (FG1) and 3 (FG3) with region-level random-effect structure.
Fig. 3: Latitudinal changes of invertebrate functional diversity.
Fig. 4: GAMM results for taxonomic richness and selected functional diversity indices (FRic and FDis) with region-level random-effect structure.
Fig. 5: GAMM results for residuals from BC dispersal, trait selection and mixed models, with region-level random-effect structure.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the following organizations: the UK Natural Environment Research Council grants and studentships GR9/2913, NE/E003729/1, NE/E004539/1, NE/E004148/1, NE/G523963/1, NER/S/A/2003/11192 and NE/L002574/1; the European Union Environment and Climate Programme Arctic and Alpine Stream Ecosystem Research (AASER) project (ENV-CT95-0164); EU-FP7 Assessing Climate impacts on the Quality and quantity of WAter (ACQWA) project (212250); the Icelandic Research Council (954890095, 954890096); the University of Iceland Research Fund (GMG96, GMG97, GMG98), Wyoming Center for Environmental Hydrology and Geophysics-National Science Foundation (1208909); USA-Wyoming NASA Space Grant Faculty Research Initiation (NNX10A095H); USA-NSF Wyoming Epscor; Nationalpark Hohe Tauern, Austria; the Royal Society (International Outgoing Grant 2006/R4); the Leverhulme Trust; the Universities of Leeds, Birmingham, Iceland and Innsbruck; the European Centre for Arctic Environmental Research (ARCFAC): a Research Infrastructures Action of the European Community FP6 (026129-2008-72); the Stelvio National Park (2000–2001); the Autonomous Province of Trento (HIGHEST project, 2001–2004, del. PAT no. 1060/2001; VETTA project, 2003–2006, del. PAT no. 3402/2002); MUSE-Museo delle Scienze. We are grateful to R. Taylor and M. Winterbourn at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, who helped to collect New Zealand invertebrate data and assisted with identification, and to H. Adalsteinsson, who contributed to data collection in Iceland. Many other people, too numerous to mention, assisted with fieldwork at all of the study locations. The European Science Foundation sponsored an exploratory workshop entitled `Glacier-fed rivers, hydroecology and climate change: current knowledge and future network of monitoring sites (GLAC-HYDROECO-NET)' that was held in Birmingham, UK in September of 2013 where some of the ideas in this paper were first discussed. We are grateful to R. Death, J. Lento, N. Phillips and M. Winterbourn for reviewing the traits database fuzzy codes. T. Baker, D. Galbraith and M. Van de Wiel provided helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. water@leeds and School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Lee E. Brown, Jonathan L. Carrivick, Sarah Fell, Nikolai Friberg & William H. M. James

  2. School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Kieran Khamis, Phillip Blaen, David M. Hannah & Alexander M. Milner

  3. Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, Coventry, UK

    Martin Wilkes

  4. Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    John E. Brittain & Svein J. Saltveit

  5. Norsk Institutt for Vannforskning, Oslo, Norway

    Nikolai Friberg

  6. River Ecology and Conservation Research, Institute of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Leopold Füreder

  7. Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Gisli M. Gislason

  8. Environment Agency, Solihull, UK

    Sarah Hainie

  9. Invertebrate Zoology and Hydrobiology Department, MUSE-Museo delle Scienze, Trento, Italy

    Valeria Lencioni

  10. Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland

    Jon S. Olafsson

  11. EAWAG, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    Christopher T. Robinson

  12. Department of Environmental Science, Western Wyoming Community College, Rock Springs, WY, USA

    Craig Thompson

  13. Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK, USA

    Alexander M. Milner

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Contributions

Proposed the study: L.E.B., K.K., A.M.M. Collected data: L.E.B., K.K., P.B., J.E.B., J.L.C., S.F., N.F., L.F., G.M.G., D.M.H., S.H., W.H.M.J., V.L., J.S.O., C.T.R., S.J.S., C.T., A.M.M. Developed databases: L.E.B., K.K., A.M.M., M.W. Analysed data: L.E.B., K.K., M.W. Wrote paper: L.E.B., K.K., M.W., A.M.M. with input from all other authors.

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Correspondence to Lee E. Brown.

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Brown, L.E., Khamis, K., Wilkes, M. et al. Functional diversity and community assembly of river invertebrates show globally consistent responses to decreasing glacier cover. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 325–333 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0426-x

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