Functional diversity and community assembly of river invertebrates show globally consistent responses to decreasing glacier cover

• Published in: Nature ecology & evolution Vol. 2; no. 2; pp. 325 - 333
• Main Authors: Brown, Lee E., Khamis, Kieran, Wilkes, Martin, Blaen, Phillip, Brittain, John E., Carrivick, Jonathan L., Fell, Sarah, Friberg, Nikolai, Füreder, Leopold, Gislason, Gisli M., Hainie, Sarah, Hannah, David M., James, William H. M., Lencioni, Valeria, Olafsson, Jon S., Robinson, Christopher T., Saltveit, Svein J., Thompson, Craig, Milner, Alexander M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.02.2018; Nature Publishing Group; Springer Nature
• Subjects: 631/158/2459; 631/158/851; 631/158/852; Animals; Assembly; Biodiversity; Biogeography; Biological and Physical Anthropology; Dispersal; Ecological function; Ecology; Ecosystem; Environmental changes; Europe; Evolutionary Biology; Functionals; Glaciers; Global Warming; Ice Cover; Invertebrates; Invertebrates - physiology; Life Sciences; New Zealand; North America; Paleontology; Rivers; Zoology; New Zealand; North America; Europe
• ISSN: 2397-334X; 2397-334X
• DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0426-x

Global change threatens invertebrate biodiversity and its central role in numerous ecosystem functions and services. Functional trait analyses have been advocated to uncover global mechanisms behind biodiversity responses to environmental change, but the application of this approach for invertebrates is underdeveloped relative to other organism groups. From an evaluation of 363 records comprising >1.23 million invertebrates collected from rivers across nine biogeographic regions on three continents, consistent responses of community trait composition and diversity to replicated gradients of reduced glacier cover are demonstrated. After accounting for a systematic regional effect of latitude, the processes shaping river invertebrate functional diversity are globally consistent. Analyses nested within individual regions identified an increase in functional diversity as glacier cover decreases. Community assembly models demonstrated that dispersal limitation was the dominant process underlying these patterns, although environmental filtering was also evident in highly glacierized basins. These findings indicate that predictable mechanisms govern river invertebrate community responses to decreasing glacier cover globally. Analysing >1 million river invertebrates from nine biogeographic regions, the authors show that functional trait diversity increases consistently as glacier cover decreases.