Frank Burdon

Improved COI taxonomic assignment workflow enhances detection of invertebrates in environmental DNA Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is an increasingly popular and powerful tool in ecology, offering a non-invasive method to assess biodiversity and monitor ecosystem health across diverse envir...

New paper suggests methodological improvements to enhance the use of the mitochondrial CO1 gene region for detecting freshwater invertebrates in eDNA

I was lucky enough to spend the last 10 days in Northland sampling streams like this for a Marsden-funded project on cross-ecosystem effects of biodiversity on system functioning.

What determines trophic niche breadth? A global analysis of freshwater fishes using isospaces - Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries Understanding the factors shaping trophic niche breadth is crucial for predicting species interactions, community assembly, and ecological responses to environmental change. Several hypotheses have be...

Interesting "global" meta-analysis exploring what drives trophic niche breadth in freshwater fishes. Not a single study from Aotearoa New Zealand included.

Mael Marguet will be speaking in Dobson 4 at 12:15PM on "Beyond barcodes: Unraveling aquatic foodd website in native and pine forest streams using eDNA"

Martin Sarkezi is speaking in Dobson 1 at 1:30PM on the "The impact of terrestrial leaf diversity on aquatic ecosystem functioning in Waikato streams"

Mael Marguet will be speaking in Dobson 4 at 12:15PM on "Beyond barcodes: Unraveling aquatic foodd website in native and pine forest streams using eDNA"

If you are at the joint NZFSS/AFSS conference in Ōtautahi Christchurch are in interested in stream ecology I recommend you attend my students' talks on Wednesday.

Natural forests of the world – a 2020 baseline for deforestation and degradation monitoring - Scientific Data Scientific Data - Natural forests of the world – a 2020 baseline for deforestation and degradation monitoring

We can map the world's existing forests with incredible accuracy now, but clearly we cannot (or will not) stop them from disappearing at rapid rates almost everywhere. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🌎

Cascading Effects of Biological Invasion and Nutriment Enrichment Disrupt Freshwater Trophic Energy Pathways and Food Web Quality Freshwater ecosystems are globally threatened by multiple climatic and anthropogenic stressors, including facilitated biological invasion and eutrophication, and thus understanding their effects o...

Invasive species can disrupt food web energy dynamics by altering pelagic-benthic pathways. In this example, interactions between invasive species and nutriment enrichment influenced concentrations of LC-PUFAs in key consumers, indicating functional shifts in resource fluxes.

Impressed to see a whole tree snagged mid-channel below the Victoria Bridge in Hamilton. The Waikato River is running very high at the moment.

Nutritional Quality of Basal Resource in Stream Food Webs Increased with Light Reduction—Implications for Riparian Revegetation - Microbial Ecology Biofilms are considered a basal resource with high nutritional quality in stream food webs, as periphytic algae are abundant of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). PUFAs are essential for growth and ...

Concentrations of an omega-6 LC-PUFA in stream biofilms was greatly decreased in open, well-lit conditions when compared to a shaded treatment - suggesting that riparian shading can improve the nutritional quality of biofilms

Red and brown macroalgae in temperate stream food webs: Are we missing an important trophic link? In temperate low-order streams and rivers, the macroinvertebrate community has a key role in the flow of matter and energy. Despite its relative scarcity, in-stream primary producers have a high func....

Understanding the specificity of algal-consumer interactions in stream food webs may be crucial for better understanding how essential LC-PUFAs are acquired from dietary sources #fattyacids

Net-spinning caddisflies create denitrifier-enriched niches in the stream microbiome AbstractLarval net-spinning caddisflies (Hydropsychidae) function as ecosystem engineers in streams where they construct protective retreats composed of or

Molecular analyses revealed that the microbiomes of hydropsychid caddisfly biostructures differ taxonomically and functionally from adjacent rock biofilms (~2 cm distant). They were enriched in microbial taxa associated with ecosystem functions including denitrification #ecosystemengineers

Fatty acid biomarkers reveal landscape influences on linkages between aquatic and terrestrial food webs Stream and riparian habitats are meta-ecosystems that can be strongly connected via the emergence of aquatic insects, which form an important prey subsidy for terrestrial consumers. Anthropogenic per....

Not sure what happened there. This link works: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Interested in applying fatty acid biomarkers and functional traits to understand landscape drivers in stream-riparian food webs? Look no further than our recent paper published here: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Definitely keen to hear more about LC-PUFA transfer in the face of different pressures like drought - feel free to drop me a line frank.burdon at waikato.ac.nz

Fatty acid biomarkers reveal landscape influences on linkages between aquatic and terrestrial food webs Stream and riparian habitats are meta-ecosystems that can be strongly connected via the emergence of aquatic insects, which form an important prey subsidy for terrestrial consumers. Anthropogenic per...

How does trophic connectivity between different ecosystems work at a landscape scale? We applied a novel conceptual framework with functional traits and fatty acid biomarkers to assess direct and indirect effects of landscape drivers on cross-ecosystem connectivity in stream-riparian #foodwebs

Warming threatens aquatic–terrestrial linkages: evidence from tropical geothermal streams Terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are connected through energy fluxes partially driven by aquatic organisms that migrate to terrestrial environments during adulthood. According to the thermal perfor...

Warming of aquatic ecosystems disrupts aquatic–terrestrial linkages in the tropics - a natural experiment using geothermally-warmed streams showed how increased temperature reduced emerging adult insects, thus affecting terrestrial predators that rely on this prey subsidy #foodwebs

Climatic stress‐induced changes in plant chemistry alter the compound‐specific degradation of litter during decomposition Plant litter decomposition sustains ecosystem productivity and modulates soil carbon cycling. Drought directly impacts decomposition by decreasing soil moisture and indirectly by altering plant tiss.....

Interesting study considers how climate change might interact with two plant species to affect litter decomposition - could such responses cross ecosystem boundaries when decomposition happens in aquatic receiving environments?

Aphid herbivory on macrophytes drives adaptive evolution in an aquatic community via indirect effects | PNAS Indirect ecological effects occur when the impact of one species on another is mediated by a third species or the shared environment. Although indi...

Indirect ecological interactions are everywhere in nature, with species influencing another through a third species or the environment. Such interactions are rarely connected to rapid evolutionary change. Here, aphid-driven herbivory of duckweed drove adaptive evolutionary change in Daphnia.

Japanese mayfly family classification with a vision transformer model - Limnology Benthic macroinvertebrates are a frequently used indicator group for biomonitoring and biologic assessment of river ecosystems. However, their taxonomic identification is laborious and requires specia...

Japanese researchers were able to use a ViT model to successfully achieve high accuracy in identifying mayfly families from images. This demonstrated the potential for machine learning and image analysis to automate the taxonomic identification of macroinvertebrates in freshwater biomonitoring.

Restoration of aquatic habitat complex extends the foraging window of terrestrial consumers Cross-ecosystem linkages benefit generalist consumers by providing prey fluxes from donor habitats, but these trophic connections are highly vulnerabl…

Restoration ecology that considers biotic interactions is essential if goals include restoring species. Constructed wetlands complement adjacent streams by supplying emergent aquatic insect subsidies asynchronously, extending the foraging window for terrestrial consumers #foodweb #landscapediversity

Andrew Barnes @barnesecodiv.bsky.social will present our next seminar:

"Deciphering the Multitrophic Consequences of Biodiversity Change Through an Energetic Lens"

Join us online Thursday 26th June 1pm AEST!

Sign up to our mailing list to receive the zoom link forms.gle/24Y557Cjeu6w...

Aquatic-terrestrial food webs are inextricably linked through reciprocal exchanges of subsidies. New synthesis explores their benefits as limiting resources that increase consumer fitness and ecosystem production, but also their dark side by vectoring contaminants, often in human-impacted watersheds

Positive Feedback on Climate Warming by Stream Microbial Decomposers Indicated by a Global Space‐For‐Time Substitution Study A globally distributed study in stream ecosystems revealed that plant litter decomposition by microorganisms is more sensitive to temperature than decomposition in the presence of detritivores, where....

I was happy to be a contributing author for this new publication from the DecoDiv globally-coordinated experiment. Warming drives microbial decomposition of leaves in a way consistent with metabolic theory, and may contribute to positive climate feedbacks
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

The landscape theory of food web architecture (LTFWA) describes relationships between body size, trophic position, mobility, and energy channels that couple habitats, which in turn promotes stability. This study in Lake Michigan explores evidence for the LTFWA
doi.org/10.1002/ecy....
Image: NASA

Declino dei ghiacciai italiani dal 2000 al 2100 Su questa mappa interattiva è possibile osservare come i ghiacciai si stiano riducendo e scomparendo nel tempo

Today, Greenpeace #Italy released a report featuring our glacier projections for all Italian #glaciers. See the future of these icy giants with an interactive map 🌍🔍 Explore now: maps.greenpeace.org/maps/gpit/de... #WorldGlaciersDay #GlacierPreservation #GreenpeaceItaly

Two new species of caddisflies (Trichoptera) from New Zealand Two new species of caddisflies are described and illustrated from Mangaiti Reserve, Hamilton City, in the central North Island of New Zealand; Oxyethira kirikiriroa (Hydroptilidae: Trichoglene) and...

Urban gullies, with their associated seepages and streams are important ecosystems that support native biodiversity in Hamilton. Here two new caddisfly species are described from an urban stream that I have used in my Rewilding Rivers SCIEN301 capstone course www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? We would rather talk about literally everything else.

Interesting post on decreasing male student participation in higher education. This phenomenon is noticeable in the biological sciences.

Linking Neotropical riparian and stream food webs: nocturnal foraging behavior and facilitation among decapods in response to added palm fruit - Hydrobiologia Freshwater macroinvertebrates can connect tropical forests and stream food webs by consuming both terrestrially and aquatically produced foods, but direct observations of nocturnal feeding behavior in...

Interesting food web interaction across ecosystem boundaries: stream decapods feeding on inputs of terrestrial fruit in neotropical forest catchments