Leaf-associated macroinvertebrate assemblage and leaf litter breakdown in headwater streams depend on local riparian vegetation – ScienceOpen
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      Leaf-associated macroinvertebrate assemblage and leaf litter breakdown in headwater streams depend on local riparian vegetation

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          Abstract

          Headwater streams harbor diverse macroinvertebrate communities and are hotspots for leaf litter breakdown. The process of leaf litter breakdown mediated by macroinvertebrates forms an important link between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Yet, how the vegetation type in the local riparian zone influences leaf-associated macroinvertebrate assemblages and leaf litter breakdown rates is still not resolved. We investigated how leaf-associated macroinvertebrate assemblages and leaf litter fragmentation rates differ between forested and non-forested sites using experimental leaf litter bags in sixteen sites paired across eight headwater streams in Switzerland. Our results show that sensitive taxa of the invertebrate orders Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera (EPT) and the functional group of shredders were strongly associated with forested sites with overall higher values of abundance, diversity, and biomass of EPTs in forested compared to non-forested sites. However, the importance of riparian vegetation differed between study regions, especially for shredders. Fragmentation rates, which are primarily the result of macroinvertebrate shredding, were on average three times higher in forested compared to non-forested sites. Our results demonstrate that not only the composition of the aquatic fauna but also the functioning of an essential ecosystem process depend on the vegetation type in the local riparian zone.

          Supplementary Information

          The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10750-022-05049-7.

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          Landscapes and Riverscapes: The Influence of Land Use on Stream Ecosystems

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            Multiple Trophic Levels of a Forest Stream Linked to Terrestrial Litter Inputs

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              Consequences of biodiversity loss for litter decomposition across biomes.

              The decomposition of dead organic matter is a major determinant of carbon and nutrient cycling in ecosystems, and of carbon fluxes between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Decomposition is driven by a vast diversity of organisms that are structured in complex food webs. Identifying the mechanisms underlying the effects of biodiversity on decomposition is critical given the rapid loss of species worldwide and the effects of this loss on human well-being. Yet despite comprehensive syntheses of studies on how biodiversity affects litter decomposition, key questions remain, including when, where and how biodiversity has a role and whether general patterns and mechanisms occur across ecosystems and different functional types of organism. Here, in field experiments across five terrestrial and aquatic locations, ranging from the subarctic to the tropics, we show that reducing the functional diversity of decomposer organisms and plant litter types slowed the cycling of litter carbon and nitrogen. Moreover, we found evidence of nitrogen transfer from the litter of nitrogen-fixing plants to that of rapidly decomposing plants, but not between other plant functional types, highlighting that specific interactions in litter mixtures control carbon and nitrogen cycling during decomposition. The emergence of this general mechanism and the coherence of patterns across contrasting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems suggest that biodiversity loss has consistent consequences for litter decomposition and the cycling of major elements on broad spatial scales.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                rebecca.oester@supsi.ch
                Journal
                Hydrobiologia
                Hydrobiologia
                Hydrobiologia
                Springer International Publishing (Cham )
                0018-8158
                1573-5117
                18 October 2022
                18 October 2022
                2023
                : 850
                : 15
                : 3359-3374
                Affiliations
                [1 ]GRID grid.16058.3a, ISNI 0000000123252233, Institute of Microbiology, , University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, ; via Flora Ruchat Roncati 15, 6850 Mendrisio, Switzerland
                [2 ]GRID grid.7400.3, ISNI 0000 0004 1937 0650, Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, , University of Zurich, ; Winterthurerstr. 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
                [3 ]GRID grid.418656.8, ISNI 0000 0001 1551 0562, Department of Aquatic Ecology, , Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, ; Überlandstrasse 133, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland
                [4 ]GRID grid.442274.3, ISNI 0000 0004 0413 0515, Laboratory of Aquatic Insect Ecology, , Universidade Vila Velha, ; Av. Comissário José Dantas de Melo 21, Vila Velha, ES 29102-920 Brazil
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9192-6882
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7451-3659
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1994-2105
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4831-6958
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4591-491X
                Article
                5049
                10.1007/s10750-022-05049-7
                10307707
                31f54763-1eb0-4b25-b920-393fb7543891
                © The Author(s) 2022

                Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

                History
                : 14 February 2022
                : 15 September 2022
                : 5 October 2022
                Funding
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001711, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung;
                Award ID: SNF IZBRZ3_186311
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: University of Zurich Research Priority Programme in Global Chane and Biodiversity
                Funded by: State Research Foundation of Espírito Santo
                Award ID: FAPES 2020-TF309
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003593, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico;
                Award ID: CNPq
                Award ID: #313367/2018-3
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: SUPSI - University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland
                Categories
                Small Waterbodies
                Custom metadata
                © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

                leaf decomposition,fragmentation rate,forested stream,terrestrial-aquatic linkages,ecosystem functioning,detrital food web

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