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

• Published in: Nature Ecology & Evolution
• Main Authors: Brown, Lee E., Khamis, Kieran, Wilkes, Martin, Blaen, Phillip, Brittain, John E., Carrivick, Jonathan L., Fell, Sarah, Friberg, Nikolai, Füreder, Leopold, Gislason, Gisli Mar, Hainie, Sarah, Hannah, David M., James, William H. M., Lencioni, Valeria, Olafsson, Jon S., Robinson, Christopher T., Saltveit, Svein J., Thompson, Craig, Milner, Alexander M.
• Other Authors: Líf- og umhverfisvísindastofnun (HÍ), Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences (UI), Verkfræði- og náttúruvísindasvið (HÍ), School of Engineering and Natural Sciences (UI), Háskóli Íslands, University of Iceland
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Nature 2017
• Subjects: Hryggleysingjar; Straumvötn; Loftslagsbreytingar; Líffræðileg fjölbreytni; Arctic; Ner; glacier; Iceland
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11815/814; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0426-x

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. This work was funded by the following organisations: The UK Natural Environment Research Council grants and studentships GR9/2913, NE/E003729/1, NE/E004539/1, NE/E004148/1, 20 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); Icelandic Research Council (954890095, 954890096); 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 ...