Drivers of long‐term invertebrate community stability in changing Swedish lakes. (14th January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fried‐Petersen, Hannah B.; Araya‐Ajoy, Yimen G.; Futter, Martyn N.; Angeler, David G.
• Is Part Of: Global change biology. Volume 26:Number 3(2020)
• Page Start: 1259
• Page End: 1270
• Publication Date: 2020-01-14
• Subjects: aquatic invertebrates -- heterogeneous residuals -- lakes -- landscape ecology -- spatial ecology -- stability -- time series; Climatic changes -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Troposphere -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Biodiversity conservation -- Periodicals; Eutrophication -- Periodicals; 551.5
• DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14952
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1354-1013

Abstract

Abstract: Research on ecosystem stability has had a strong focus on local systems. However, environmental change often occurs slowly at broad spatial scales, which requires regional‐level assessments of long‐term stability. In this study, we assess the stability of macroinvertebrate communities across 105 lakes in the Swedish "lakescape." Using a hierarchical mixed‐model approach, we first evaluate the environmental pressures affecting invertebrate communities in two ecoregions (north, south) using a 23 year time series (1995–2017) and then examine how a set of environmental and physical variables affect the stability of these communities. Results show that lake latitude, size, total phosphorus and alkalinity affect community composition in northern and southern lakes. We find that lake stability is affected by species richness and lake size in both ecoregions and alkalinity and total phosphorus in northern lakes. There is large heterogeneity in the patterns of community stability of individual lakes, but relationships between that stability and environmental drivers begin to emerge when the lakescape, composed of many discrete lakes, is the focal unit of study. The results of this study highlight that broad‐scale comparisons in combination with long time series are essential to understand the effects of environmental change on the stability of lake communities in space and time. Abstract : We assess the long‐term stability of invertebrate communities in 105 lakes in the Swedish "lakescape" by quantifying stability at the individual lake level as well as the environmental and physical variables affecting this stability at the ecoregion level. We find that stability is affected by species richness and lake size in both ecoregions, and alkalinity and total phosphorus in northern lakes. These results highlight the importance of broad‐scale and long‐term studies of stability.