Department Fish Ecology and Evolution

Predator coupling of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems: the importance of nutritional diversity of prey

 

This project contributes to the Blue Green Biodiversity Research Initiative – an Eawag-WSL collaboration focusing on Biodiversity at the interface of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

Human activities often disproportionately threaten predators compared to other trophic groups, and this can influence biomass distribution along food chains, coexistence of competing species, and stability of entire food webs. Many predators forage on a wide diversity of prey species from both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, which vary considerably in their spatial and temporal availability (e.g. abundance, and phenology) as well as nutritional quality (e.g. fatty acids). This is particularly important because predators often lack the metabolic capacity to synthesise, for example, the omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (hereafter PUFAs) that are essential for growth, survival and reproduction. Aquatic ecosystems have substantially more PUFAs than terrestrial ecosystems, and the relative availability of PUFAs can have fitness consequences for consumers. In this project we ask: how does spatiotemporal variation in prey availability and quality affect predators foraging on both aquatic and terrestrial resources?

Publication

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      originalId => protected24504 (integer)
      authors => protected'Shipley, J. R.; Twining, C. W.; Mathieu-Resuge, M.;
          Parmar, T. P.; Kainz, M.; Martin-Creuzburg, D.; Weber,&
         nbsp;C.; Winkler, D. W.; Graham, C. H.; Matthews, B
         .
' (229 chars) title => protected'Climate change shifts the timing of nutritional flux from aquatic insects' (73 chars) journal => protected'Current Biology' (15 chars) year => protected2022 (integer) volume => protected32 (integer) issue => protected'6' (1 chars) startpage => protected'1342' (4 chars) otherpage => protected'1349' (4 chars) categories => protected'' (0 chars) description => protected'Climate change can decouple resource supply from consumer demand, with the p
         otential to create phenological mismatches driving negative consequences on
         fitness. However, the underlying ecological mechanisms of phenological misma
         tches between consumers and their resources have not been fully explored. He
         re, we use long-term records of aquatic and terrestrial insect biomass and e
         gg-hatching times of several co-occurring insectivorous species to investiga
         te temporal mismatches between the availability of and demand for nutrients
         that are essential for offspring development. We found that insects with aqu
         atic larvae reach peak biomass earlier in the season than those with terrest
         rial larvae and that the relative availability of omega-3 long-chain polyuns
         aturated fatty acids (n-3 LCPUFAs) to consumers is almost entirely dependent
          on the phenology of aquatic insect emergence. This is due to the 4- to 34-f
         old greater n-3 LCPUFA concentration difference in insects emerging from aqu
         atic as opposed to terrestrial habitats. From a long-sampled site (25 years)
          undergoing minimal land use conversion, we found that both aquatic and terr
         estrial insect phenologies have advanced substantially faster than those of
         insectivorous birds, shifting the timing of peak availability of n-3 LCPUFAs
          for birds during reproduction. For species that require n-3 LCPUFAs directl
         y from diet, highly nutritious aquatic insects cannot simply be replaced by
         terrestrial insects, creating nutritional phenological mismatches. Our resea
         rch findings reveal and highlight the increasing necessity of specifically i
         nvestigating how nutritional phenology, rather than only overall resource av
         ailability, is changing for consumers in response to climate change.
' (1740 chars) serialnumber => protected'0960-9822' (9 chars) doi => protected'10.1016/j.cub.2022.01.057' (25 chars) uid => protected24504 (integer) _localizedUid => protected24504 (integer)modified _languageUid => protectedNULL _versionedUid => protected24504 (integer)modified pid => protected124 (integer)
Shipley, J. R.; Twining, C. W.; Mathieu-Resuge, M.; Parmar, T. P.; Kainz, M.; Martin-Creuzburg, D.; Weber, C.; Winkler, D. W.; Graham, C. H.; Matthews, B. (2022) Climate change shifts the timing of nutritional flux from aquatic insects, Current Biology, 32(6), 1342-1349, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2022.01.057, Institutional Repository

 

Project team

Dr. Blake Matthews Group Leader Tel. +41 58 765 2120 Send Mail

Dr. Catherine Graham
WSL
Tel. +41 44 739 23 61

 

 

 

Dr. Cornelia Twining Group Leader Tel. +41 58 765 2128 Send Mail

Media contact: Cornelia Twining