The composition of macroinvertebrate functional feeding groups (FFGs) has been used as surrogates of ecosystem attributes in aquatic ecosystems, but studies that utilize such knowledge are still limited in the tropics. This study investigated the suitability of abundance- vs. biomass-based metrics of macroinvertebrate FFGs as surrogates of ecosystems attributes of the Sosiani–Kipkaren River in western

Streams and rivers are known to be significant processors and emitters of carbon (C) to the atmosphere. There have been many large-scale estimates of fluvial C emissions, yet many lack quantification of temporal variability. Here, we compared the relative importance of spatial versus seasonal variability of CO\(_2\) and CH\(_4\) concentrations and fluxes, and DOC concentration in 23 streams and rivers

The identification of patterns and mechanisms behind species’ distribution is one of the major challenges in ecology, having important outcomes for the conservation and management of ecosystems. This is especially true for those components of biodiversity providing essential ecosystem functions and for which standard surveys may underestimate their real taxonomic diversity due to high degree of cryptic

The deposition of excess fine sediment and clogging of benthic substrates is recognised as a global threat to ecosystem functioning and community dynamics. Legacy effects of previous sedimentation create a habitat template on which subsequent ecological responses occur, and therefore, may have a long-lasting influence on community structure. Our experimental study examined the effects of streambed

Zooplankton assemblages in the confined coastal lagoons of La Pletera salt marshes (Baix Ter wetlands, Girona, Spain) are dominated by two species: one calanoid copepod (Eurytemora velox) and the other rotifer (Brachionus gr. plicatilis). They alternate as the dominant species (more than 80% of total zooplankton biomass), with the former being dominant in winter and the latter in summer. Shifts between

Galled leaves are very frequent in southern beech (Nothofagus pumilio) forests. We compared the consumption of leaves (galled and ungalled) by two detritivores and the effect of this consumption on detritivore nutrient content. The amphipod Hyalella curvispina and larvae of the caddisfly Monocosmoecus hyadesi were fed with two diet treatments for 30 days: (1) ungalled leaves and (2) galled leaves.

Reservoirs show contrasting chemical and biological spatial gradients due to the strong effect of the inflowing rivers on the whole ecosystem. However, the fate of dissolved organic matter (DOM) input from rivers along the reservoir water body is still unclear. Here, we characterized the composition of DOM in the Ter River–Sau Reservoir system (Spain), located in a watershed under anthropogenic pressures

Aquatic ecosystems worldwide are impacted by an influx of nutrients and sludge particles from wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents, leading to a degradation of benthic habitats and a loss of associated macroinvertebrate taxa. Hence, in habitats impacted by WWTPs, only a few tolerant macroinvertebrate taxa remain. These tolerant detritivore macroinvertebrate taxa play an important role in the

Dryland river systems support a diverse aquatic biota in semi-arid and arid landscapes, but they are increasingly vulnerable to natural and human impacts. This study provides the first modern diatom training set (n = 38) from three dryland rivers in northern Patagonia, Argentina. The relationship between surface-sediment diatoms and contemporary environmental variables was explored using multivariate

Subterranean streams represent unique heterotrophic ecosystems, usually supported by organic matter imported from the surface. Traditionally, the biological communities from subterranean streams were characterized as simple associations, with low diversity and species abundance, comprising mostly aquatic invertebrates connected by few trophic links compared with those of the surface. However, these

We evaluated the beta diversity patterns of aquatic macroinvertebrate assemblages at two spatial scales in streams in the Eastern Amazon, as well as tested whether environmental and spatial factors affected these assemblage patterns differently for non-flying (i.e., shrimps) and flying (i.e., insects) macroinvertebrate groups. Fifteen streams were sampled, focusing on two hierarchical spatial levels:

The dynamics of picophytoplankton, a vital component of the aquatic microbial food web, are least explored in the river-dominated estuaries, especially those subjected to human modifications that can alter the hydrodynamics and the biota. Here, picophytoplankton community dynamics was assessed seasonally and spatially in the tropical monsoon-influenced Hooghly River estuary and an adjacent semi-enclosed

A comprehensive understanding of how interactions between catchments and downstream lakes affect fish growth rate is lacking for many species and systems, yet is necessary for predicting impacts of environmental change on productivity of freshwater fish populations. We investigated among-lake variability in growth rate of Northern Pike (Esox lucius), a fish species of widespread subsistence and commercial

Previous studies suggested that strong positive correlations between microbial taxa destabilized the microbial communities, because high synchrony between taxa caused different taxa responded in tandem to the changes of environmental conditions. In this study, we used nutrient concentrations (nitrogen and phosphorus) as indicators for anthropogenic activities, and explored the effects of anthropogenic

Aquatic macrophytes may have a significant effect on associated communities such as epiphytes and macroinvertebrates, which through the structural complexity of habitat, provide shelter, resources, and interspecific interactions. We tested the hypothesis that the structural complexity of macrophytes positively modifies epiphytes and macroinvertebrates and that the interspecific interactions of epiphytes

Morphometric differences between ponds and lakes have implications in habitat-dimensioning and coupling. The prevalence of pelagic over benthic habitats in lakes differs from ponds, where macrophytes dominate, offering both within-meadow free water and support for benthic organisms. We assessed four Mediterranean waterbodies (two ponds and two lakes) situated along an environmental–morphometric gradient

Coastal wetlands are highly heterogeneous due to their location between land and ocean. Clonal plants living in coastal wetlands can adapt to nutrient and salinity heterogeneity through clonal integration. However, little is known about how the single clonal ramet with fine roots adapts to nutrient heterogeneity within the microhabitat. Pot control experiments with 12 treatments were conducted to evaluate

The effects of mixing different leaf litter species on litter decomposition in streams have received considerable attention in recent years. However, contrasting results have been reported and the mechanisms behind the effects of litter diversity have been poorly examined. We compared the decomposition rates and associated fungi for two contrasting litter species, when incubated individually and in

Diverse communities are more productive than less diverse ones because of two overyielding mechanisms: a selection effect and a complementarity effect, which operate in different ways. Moreover, ecosystem multifunctionality is expected to increase and become more stable with increasing species diversity. However, it is unclear how the aforementioned processes operate in aquatic ecosystems, where the

Partial migration, whereby a population comprises multiple behavioural phenotypes that each have varying tendencies to migrate, is common among many animals. Determining the mechanisms by which these phenotypes are maintained is important for understanding their roles in population structure and stability. The aim here was to test for the temporal and spatial consistency of migratory phenotypes in

Lake surveys conducted in 1987–88 and 2018–19 show changes in the chemical and optical properties of Adirondack lakes recovering from acidification. Among chronically acidified lakes (1980s pH < 5.5, ANC < 0 µeq L−1), increases in pH and reductions in monomeric Al were accompanied by significant increases in light attenuation, DOC, and CDOM. DOC-specific dissolved color (CDOM:DOC) doubled over the

Although detritivorous Tubificinae and chironomid larvae are important groups in functioning of both, fresh and brackish water ecosystem, their co-occurrence patterns in sediment is weakly known. We carried out two-year-long research in the brackish Vistula Lagoon (southern Baltic Sea), where both Tubificinae (Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri and Potamothrix hammoniensis) and larvae of Chironomus balatonicus

Concentrations of lipid-phosphorus (LP) in aquatic ecosystems can be influenced by algal biomass and the nutritional state of microbial communities, potentially serving a useful indicator of P-limitation. We examined the effectiveness of LP as a bioindicator by examining concentrations of LP and environmental factors controlling its abundance across Lake Erie and its tributaries. LP concentrations

In alluvial plains, where shallow lakes are subject to inputs of sediments, the impact of turbidity on predator–prey interactions needs to be studied. We conducted an in situ mesocosm study in a shallow floodplain lake during 36 days to evaluate the main and interactive effect of fish predation and turbidity on the abundances, composition and habitat selection of a natural aquatic assemblage, including

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-021-00785-9

Winter stream temperatures, though infrequently studied, exert important influences on aquatic communities. To quantify effects of watershed physical characteristics on stream winter thermal regime, 54 streams (watershed area = 0.2–7.9 km2; altitude < 1300 m) on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA were monitored hourly for 4 years. During the study, an exceptionally warm winter (2015) was used to

Due to the higher anthropogenic impacts, streams from urban regions are expected to suffer more damage than those from rural regions. This study investigated whether environmental changes caused by human activities negatively affect the variability in ecomorphological and dietary characteristics of the ichthyofauna from ten streams (five urban and five rural). Contrary to expectations, ecomorphological

The process of chemosynthesis can represent an important source of organic matter and energy across the benthic zone. However, its detailed vertical distribution and importance in relation to other microbial processes are still poorly investigated in inland aquatic ecosystems. Here, we determined the rates of dark inorganic carbon fixation (DCF) compared to heterotrophic bacterial production (BP) and

Droughts are expected to become more common with climate change resulting in more frequent occurrences of flow intermittency in temperate streams. As intermittency has deleterious effects on fluvial microbial biofilms, there is a need to better understand how droughts affect the microbial functioning and thereby nutrient and organic matter processing in temperate stream ecosystems. Here, the hyporheic

Knowledge of the habitat associations and spatial–temporal distributions of wild animals is essential for successful ecosystem management, and effective analytical approaches are key to develop accurate models of these relationships. We explore the influence of several modeling techniques, tuning parameters, and assignment thresholds on a variety of model fit metrics to characterize habitat associations

In floodplain lakes, precipitation events shape the environmental heterogeneity and the occurrence of species and functional traits. However, the importance of each biotic and abiotic factor on structuring communities might depend on the local environmental conditions and the identity of such communities. We investigated through Permutational analyses of variance and functional β-diversity components

Harmful blooms of the filamentous cyanobacteria Planktothrix rubescens have become common in many lakes as they have recovered from eutrophication over the last decades. These cyanobacteria, capable of regulating their vertical position, often flourish at the thermocline to form a deep chlorophyll maximum. In Lake Zurich (Switzerland), they accumulate during stratified season (May–October) as a persistent

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from freshwater streams are poorly quantified in sub-tropical climates, especially in the southern hemisphere where land use is rapidly changing. Here, we examined the distribution, potential drivers, and emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) from eleven Australian freshwater streams with varying catchment land uses yet similar hydrology

Aquatic plants are vital components of shallow aquatic ecosystems, and they can substantially contribute to food webs. However, the large spatial and temporal variations of δ13C and δ15N signatures of aquatic plants have hindered the interpretation of their trophic interactions with organisms at higher trophic levels, and the effects of temperature on plant isotopic signatures remain to be fully elucidated

Freshwater lakes are essential hotspots for the removal of excessive anthropogenic nitrogen (N) loads transported from the land to coastal oceans. The biogeochemical processes responsible for N removal, the corresponding transformation rates and overall removal efficiencies differ between lakes, however, it is unclear what the main controlling factors are. Here, we investigated the factors that moderate

The role of nitrogen and phosphorus in promoting cyanobacterial blooms has been researched for many decades. In contrast, much less is known about the effect of trace metals on regulating cyanobacterial bloom formation. This is particularity relevant for nitrogen-fixing species, as some trace metals act as co-factors in nitrogenase and nitrite reductase enzymes. In the present study, we assessed the

The interactions between sediment microbial assemblages and submerged macrophytes in aquatic ecosystems can be potentially regulated by benthic macrofauna, and the regulation effect may be closely related to macrophyte species with distinct properties; however, little information on this is available. An aquarium experiment was designed to evaluate the role of snail Bellamya aeruginosa (Reeve) in regulating

Hydroperiod is considered an important aspect in shaping community structure and ecosystem patterns in temporary wetlands. However, most studies have focused on the community structure, demonstrating that biotic diversity increases with hydroperiod. Theory suggests that ecosystem patterns like trophic interactions and food web structure will also respond to hydroperiod in the same way. However, there

Heterocystous Cyanobacteria of the genus Nodularia form major blooms in brackish waters, while terrestrial Nostoc species occur worldwide, often associated in biological soil crusts. Both genera, by virtue of their ability to fix N2 and conduct oxygenic photosynthesis, contribute significantly to global primary productivity. Select Nostoc and Nodularia species produce the hepatotoxin nodularin and

Macroinvertebrates play a key role in aquatic food webs, with amino acids (AA) playing an important role in determining their nutritional value to higher consumers. This study aimed to determine whether AA profile varies among four macroinvertebrate taxa, spatially and seasonally (summer/winter). The freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium australiense; freshwater shrimp, Paratya australiensis; freshwater

Recently, it has been reported that freshwater browning has less effect on planktonic invertebrate abundances than would be expected from current knowledge regarding of the biochemical activity of dissolved organic matter. It may be that the weak responses of whole communities to browning are masked because the individual mitigating strategies of community components have disparate demographic consequences

Freshwater reservoirs play a significant role in the global carbon cycle by processing and storing large quantities of dissolved organic matter (DOM). Quantifying the magnitude of DOM fluctuations across multiple temporal scales can advance our understanding of how the controls on reservoir carbon cycling may vary. We monitored fluorescent DOM (fDOM) using an in situ epilimnetic sensor at a ten-minute

Wetlands and ditches are both common aquatic habitats in lowland landscapes of northeast China. However, most biodiversity management and research for aquatic organisms has focused on the biota of natural wetlands, and the invertebrate fauna of ditches has not been previously addressed. Because ditch habitats can be so extensive in some landscapes, their contribution could be substantial. To assess

The role of trace metal micronutrients in limiting cyanobacterial growth and structuring the phytoplankton community is becoming more evident. However, little is known regarding the extent of micronutrient limitation in freshwaters or which micronutrient conditions favour potentially-toxic cyanobacteria. To assess how freshwater phytoplankton respond to micronutrient and macronutrient additions, we

Beta-diversity measures have been used to understand patterns of community distribution in natural ecosystems. Recent studies included different facets of beta-diversity analyses, e.g. trait- and phylogeny-based. Here, we used ostracod communities to evaluate the influence of environmental and spatial factors structuring different facets of beta-diversity and their components (Beta-total, replacement

Drying in alpine streams might decrease aquatic-terrestrial trophic linkages by reducing terrestrial predation on aquatic prey. We tested this hypothesis by investigating whether a common riparian predator (hunting spiders) in alpine environments assimilated a lower proportion of aquatic prey with increasing stream intermittency. We used high temporal-resolution data from electrical resistance sensors

Light and nutrients are bottom-up factors in controlling biofilm in tropical shaded oligotrophic streams. Regardless of the predominant resource source (autochthonous or allochthonous), greater availability of light and nutrients favors the development and, later, grazing (top-down factor) of the biofilm, with reflections on the trophic structure of these ecosystems. The increase in primary productivity

Flooding events in large rivers, termed flood pulses, expand and contract habitat available for fish populations, affecting fish abundance and catches. Here, we investigated if river hydrologic variability affected catch of curimatã (Prochilodus nigricans), a widely distributed and economically important fish species of the Amazon Basin. Using fish catch and fishing effort data for the lower Amazon

The grazing effects of zooplankton communities are predicted to be strongest in mesotrophic lakes relative to eutrophic and oligotrophic lakes, an idea known as the Mesotrophic Maximum Hypothesis. We tested if the predictions of this hypothesis depend on the community of zooplankton present by evaluating whether the community of zooplankton, in addition to lake trophic state, interact to determine

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) impacts water quality, the carbon cycle, and the ecology of aquatic systems. Understanding what controls DOC is therefore critical for improving large-scale models and best management practices for aquatic ecosystems. The two main processes of DOC transformation and removal, photochemical and microbial DOC degradation, work in tandem to modify and remineralize DOC within

Lake browning—the increase in catchment-derived (allochthonous) dissolved organic matter (DOM) to lakes—is altering lake physicochemical environments, with consequences for phytoplankton biomass and community composition. We hypothesized that as lakes brown, there will be an increase in phytoplankton biomass and a shift to cyanobacteria-dominated phytoplankton communities as a result of the reduced

The alluvial valley of the Mississippi River is an extensive area harboring hundreds of lakes created by fluvial dynamics. These floodplain lakes are scattered throughout the valley and carved over thousands of years by shifting river courses and other hydro-fluvial processes associated with contemporary and prehistoric rivers. These lakes have significant ecological importance as they support a large

A pattern of increasing similarity among ecological communities in space or time is usually a consequence of anthropogenic pressures. However, natural causes such as flood pulse may also increase spatial similarity among lakes or temporal similarity within a lake. We assessed whether floods homogenize zooplankton and macrophyte assemblages in space and time using a 16 years data set obtained in six

Hydrological intermittency affects sediment biogeochemistry, organic carbon (OC) metabolism and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emission but the study of the effects of drying is generally confined to natural ecosystems. Agricultural canals are artificial, widespread elements in irrigated floodplains, and regularly subjected to water level fluctuations. The aim of this study was to quantify the CO 2 emissions

Sea surface temperature fronts in the Northeastern Arabian Sea (NEAS) facilitate nutrient enhancement in the surface layers, resulting in high primary production. Such high production areas contribute to the accumulation of fresh organic matter rich in carbohydrates, thereby supporting higher heterotrophic metabolism. Transparent exopolysaccharides (TEP) are one of the carbohydrate polymers released

Water quality degradation is one of the largest threats to freshwater ecosystems. Nutrient inputs, land use changes, and climate are expected to be the most important drivers of water quality degradation. Here, we quantify the relative influence of nutrient inputs, climate, and lake geomorphometry on primary production in freshwater lakes globally, using chlorophyll a (chla) as a proxy. We used a large

As fatty acids are one of the most crucial biomolecules transferred across the aquatic food webs, they are claimed to be bioindicators of stressors. Among the various environmental stressors, food shortage is of prime importance. Lower food availability can affect fatty acid metabolism of organisms. We investigated the effects of short-term starvation on fatty acid metabolism of Daphnia magna neonates

Submerged macrophytes are key components of shallow lake biological communities, and their presence has been associated with a predominantly clear-water state. Conversely, lakes lacking macrophytes are often turbid with elevated phytoplankton abundance. One main mechanism that influences the presence or absence of submerged macrophytes is turbidity that reduces the light available to macrophytes. Increases

Inputs of glacial meltwater and changes in climate can profoundly influence lake ecosystems. Anderson and Seton lakes, two morphologically and chemically similar fjord lakes within the Fraser River Basin, British Columbia, experience a common biogeoclimatic setting, yet contrasting turbid-water influences from a hydroelectric development which diverts glacially-turbid water into Seton Lake, but not