Abstract
The differences between temperate and tropical seasonality suggest that ecological models developed for temperate streams do not necessarily apply to tropical streams. While detritus is the base of the temperate zone stream food webs, we expected a seasonal alternation in the energy source in tropical streams (i.e., increase in the autochthonous energy source in the dry season, and an increase in the allochthonous energy source in the rainy season). We sought to evaluate the annual dynamics of the benthic macroinvertebrate functional feeding group (FFG) communities, the availability of their food resources, and the use of FFG ratios as surrogates for stream ecosystem traits in two first-order, tropical streams in Chiapas, Mexico. We found an increase in the biomass of herbivore-FFGs correlated to their autochthonous food resources in the dry season. The detritivore-FFGs biomass did not correlate to the abundance of the allochthonous food resources. Stream ecosystem traits were similar between seasons and were associated with a dominance of scrapers, shredders, and predators throughout the year. We concluded that the temperate classical ecological stream models that suggest allochthonous resources almost entirely support food webs do not directly extrapolate to tropical stream ecosystems. Instead, tropical stream food webs significantly rely on autochthonous food resources.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank to the “Posgrado en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología”, UNAM and to the CONACYT grant for the first author. This research was financially supported by FORDECYT-CONACYT 273646 “Fortalecimiento de las capacidades científicas y tecnológicas para la gestión territorial sustentable de la Cuenca del Río Usumacinta y su Zona Marina de Influencia (CRUZMI), así como su adaptación ante el cambio climático” project, and PAPIIT IN216818 “Flujos de carbono, nutrientes y sedimentos en un sistema lótico tropical” project. We thank to the “Fundación Natura y Ecosistemas Mexicanos AC” and the staff of the “Chajul” Biological Station for the logistic support during the fieldwork. We would like to thank to Dr. Luis A. Oseguera, MSc. Daniel Cuevas Lara and MSc. Ismael Soria for their support in the fieldwork.
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Cortés-Guzmán, D., Alcocer, J. & Cummins, K.W. Benthic macroinvertebrates of tropical streams: functional and trophic diversity of the Lacantún River, Mexico. Limnology 22, 313–328 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10201-021-00658-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10201-021-00658-y