Eric Harvey

A cool way to look at size spectrum!

Cereghetti et al: #Seasonal #dynamics of detritus flows and #decomposition across #ecosystem boundaries.

🌿🍂🦐 🌐🌍

We studied seasonal dynamics/phenology ⏱️ of 🟩terrestrial-🟦aquatic linkages across a year: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Out in #CurrentBiology @currentbiology.bsky.social

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World map showing origin of the data

Our study ‘The global human impact on biodiversity’ is out in Nature!

Through an unprecedented synthesis (2133 studies!) we show that humans are not only shrinking species numbers—but reshaping entire communities across the planet. 🌍🌐🐟🌿🪲

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Other taxa identified with low dispersal capacity will be more sensitive to longitudinal connectivity in the watershed. Therefore, we echo the recent call on the importance of considering both cross-ecosystem (lateral) and longitudinal connectivity as targets for conservation planning.

bottom-line 1: Despite nuances and a call for further investigations, those results suggest that shredders and predators could be key transmission belts in the propagation of cross-ecosystem perturbations because of their strong associations with variations in terrestrial subsidy quality.

b) dispersal traits: Taxa with high dispersal capacity were more abundant in lakes with lower connectivity compared to taxa with low dispersal capacity. BUT no associations with resource quality! Thus no site selection based on resource quality, whether directly or by proxy.

a) feeding traits: we were surprised that predators (R2=0.5) association with quality (t-POM phosphorus) was much stronger than shredders (R2=0.01). But then, predators are prone to stoichiometric imbalance, and shredders might be limited by other metrics of quality (fungal biomass, toughness etc.).

Identifying key traits associated with cross-ecosystem resource inputs is an essential step toward developing a general understanding of how perturbations can propagate across ecosystems. We thought a) feeding traits and b) capacity to move and track resource quality were good starting points.

Can semi-aquatic insects track the quality of terrestrial subsidy ? We found that predators responded the most, followed by shredders. Dispersal traits did not respond at all. In brief, predators and shredders are transmission belts of cross-ecosystem perturbations (see 🧵for more). 🧪💧🌎
rdcu.be/eg7RT

Lead author Auke-Florian Hiemstra holds the oldest known caddisfly casing containing microplastic, dating to 1971. Photo: Liselotte Rambonnet.

A caddisfly casing with pieces of blue microplastic, dating 1986. Photo: Auke-Florian Hiemstra

NEW PAPER, JUST OUT! 👀

Insects from the '70s and '80s were already collecting microplastic, decades before the term microplastic even existed. 🤯

A thread on the surprising history of this pollutant and the incredible insect larvae that helped us uncover it. 🐛

Let's dive in! 🧵👇 1/x

3. Main local drivers of prevalence mainly involved abiotic factors but most interestingly to me we found strong evidence for a biotic dilution effect (community with more none-host species tend to have some protecting effects on host species). To know more - look at the paper - :-)

....to the fact that they interact with fish "personality" and movement range and thus they overall simply sample different parts of the community (and location in the waterbody). Interestingly though, in terms of prevalence estimation, they tend to converge with sampling effort to similar values!👇

Main findings are: 1. Because of spatial aggregation in infection prevalence, small sampling effort led to an important overestimation of prevalence. Fortunately the threshold to reach a good estimate is not very high. 2. Fishing methods do influence results owing probably...👇

Local environment and sampling bias drive parasite prevalence estimates in freshwater fish communities Parasite occurrence and infection estimates vary through time and space, making understanding the underlying drivers highly complex. Comparative studies based on empirical data must consider the fact....

Estimating infection prevalence at landscape-scale can be tricky. In this study led by Juliane Vigneault we explored spatial scaling effects with sampling effort, we compared different sampling methods and their biases and we identified some key local drivers (a short 🧵👇). 🌎🧪💧
tinyurl.com/555cmb2a

The ecological benefits of more room for rivers - Nature Water This Review synthesizes the ecological features and processes that arise when rivers are given room to move. Understanding these interactions will support more sustainable decisions that weigh river e...

We need free-flowing rivers!

“Giving rivers more room to move can represent a mutually beneficial solution for both the freshwater biodiversity crisis and flood hazard management as climate-driven extremes escalate.”

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Un super projet multimédia dirigés par deux étudiants du labo pour mettre de l'avant la recherche ainsi que les chercheur_es en écologie des eaux douce au Québec (A great multimedia project led by two of our lab students to showcase Quebec research and researchers in freshwater ecology) 💧

Interested in multiple stressor research in rivers?
Interested in a PhD under excellent supervision in one of Europe’s largest freshwater research centres?
We seek 8 doctoral researchers for the CRC RESIST at the University of Duisburg-Essen!
sfb-resist.de/people/open-...
#rivers #PhDjobs

Important : an english version of the ad will be posted very soon !

*Job Hiring*: If you speak french or are willing to learn, my Env. Sci. dept. at UQTR is currently hiring in the field of geospatial sciences applied to the environment. Come and work with us where you can ski from your office while still being close to major cities.
tinyurl.com/37wayhhz

#geosky 🧪

“Experts and scientists are migrating to Bluesky in record numbers.” Welcome if you’re new (and if you’re not, please help by reposting) - here’s a starter pack for the #biodiversity science-policy community:

go.bsky.app/LjV86zg

Would love to join if possible thanks

Continental-scale nutrient and contaminant delivery by Pacific salmon - Nature Pacific salmon transport of nutrients and contaminants to freshwaters increased by 30% and 20%, respectively, between 1976 and 2015, an increase dominated by pink salmon, which had the highest nu...

Salmon are an archetypal spatial subsidy transporting marine-derived nutrients and contaminants to inland freshwater and terrestrial food webs. When considering past and present ecosystems in Aotearoa, we should appreciate the role of diadromy in connecting multiple ecosystems #metaecosystems

Consumer biodiversity increases organic nutrient availability across aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems Human land-use intensification threatens arthropod (for example, insect and spider) biodiversity across aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Insects and spiders play critical roles in ecosystems by acc...

This paper was a massive team effort that culminated in a simple story:
More biodiverse communities of invertebrates, in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, have a higher content of "good fats" that are available for predators (e.g. bird, bats, fish, etc...).
doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Merci Nicolas - must admit I have no clue how those starter package works - but happy to be on the list :-) - thanks!

Merci Julie !...this was a true "slow-science" project that started in 2017 following a discussion with Shawn Leroux, and it would have never seen the day without stellar works from Anne McLeod...was well worth the wait ! ;-)

...identifying those processes is essential to an efficient identification of conservation/restoration targets. For instance If the main driver is animal-vectored, than connectivity might become an important management aspect, or the local maintaining of trophic interactions (etc.). End - thanks !

4 - More speculative - but we offer insights on how the spatial scaling of elemental distribution can inform the underlying processes - are the patterns driven by geological processes or biotic processes (organisms moving nutrients in the landscape, trophic interactions). More test needed here...

Maintaining an heterogeneous mosaic is essential in the context where conservation management moves more toward multi-function landscapes. Our work also emphasizes the notion of geodiversity which encompass the diversity of both biotic and abiotic ecosystem components (and their interactions).

Thus, we assume in our work that being unique makes you a stronger contributor to diversity at landscape-scale. In a landscape dominated by few elements (agricultural matrix), the habitats with high calcium or magnesium (or else) are the ones we should prioritize to maintain a mosaic.

3- Apply statistical tools to extract spatial patterns in elemental turnover. Here we suggest using tools from community ecology such as LCBD and SCBD to identify sites and elements that contribute most to the observed spatial turnover. Those represents your hotspots/coldspots