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Writer's pictureNathan Baker
Mar 7, 20222 min read

Decoupled taxonomic and functional recovery of boreal freshwater biodiversity across time and space

Updated: Oct 24

Disentangling the effects of environmental drivers on the structure and function of macroinvertebrate communities within boreal streams



Key finding


Within protected boreal ecosystems, freshwater biodiversity is changing over short- and long-term temporal scales. These changes manifest as increases in taxonomic diversity and overall community abundances, but functional diversity is decoupled. While boreal freshwaters communities are highly adapted to seasonal shifts in environmental conditions, the aggregation of marginal environmental change over the long-term drives taxonomic compositional restructuring and subsequent variations in ecosystem functioning. However, even across similar boreal ecosystems, biodiversity patterns and their response to environmental change are spatially different, driven by localised biogeographic conditions

Overview


This project exploits high-quality, coupled biodiversity and environmental data to broaden our knowledge regarding freshwater biodiversity and its underlying drivers. Using these data and focusing on protected headwater streams, the overall aims of this thesis were to:


  1. Investigate temporal and spatial trends of macroinvertebrate taxonomic and functional diversity within European boreal regions and

  2. Disentangle and quantify the underlying drivers of these patterns.


Accordingly, this project resulted in three publications investigating long-term biodiversity trends of a single boreal stream and short-term biodiversity trends across three boreal regions, with each publication independently exploring the potential drivers of the changes observed therein. The temporal aspect of this project is focused on a near-natural boreal stream – the Große Ohe River within the Bavarian Forest National Park (BFNP) in south-eastern Germany – and uses 32-years' worth of biomonitoring data (1983–2014) to track temporal changes in taxonomic diversity, functional diversity, and environmental chemistry using univariate and multivariate statistics. The spatial aspect of this project uses seasonally replicated spatial data from 70 protected stream sites within boreal regions in Germany, Finland, and Sweden to identify how spatial patterns of taxonomic and functional diversity vary between seasons (short-term temporal changes) and to investigate the potential drivers of these patterns at the supraregional scale.


Keywords

aquatic macroinvertebrates | community variability | long-term | spatial analysis | anthropogenic drivers | trends | biological recovery | taxonomic diversity | functional diversity | redundancy | long term ecosystem research | protected area | national park | boreal | multivariate analysis | biomonitoring | Germany | Finland | Sweden | Bavarian Forest | freshwater | temporal | niche modelling

See associated publications:


Baker, N.J., Welti, E.A.R., Pilotto, F., Jourdan, J., Beudert, B., Huttunen, K., Muotka, T., Paavola, R., Göthe, E, & Haase, P. 2023. Seasonal and spatial variation of stream macroinvertebrate taxonomic and functional diversity across three boreal regions. Insect Conservation and Diversity. [pdf]


Baker, N.J., Pilotto, F., Haubrock, P.J., Beudert, B. & Haase, P. 2021. Multidecadal changes in functional diversity lag behind the recovery of taxonomic diversity. Ecology and Evolution, 11, 17471−17484. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8381


Baker, N.J., Pilotto, F., Jourdan, J., Beudert, B. & Haase, P. 2021. Recovery from air pollution and subsequent acidification masks the effects of climate change on a freshwater macroinvertebrate community. Science of the Total Environment, 758, 143685. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143685


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