12,005 research outputs found
River Networks as Ecological Corridors: Species, Populations, Pathogens
No full textRiver networks are critically important ecosystems. This interdisciplinary book provides an integrated ecohydrological framework blending laboratory, field, and theoretical evidence that changes our understanding of river networks as ecological corridors. It describes how the physical structure of the river environment impacts biodiversity, species invasions, population dynamics, and the spread of waterborne disease. State-of-the-art research on the ecological roles of the structure of river networks is summarized, including important studies on the spread and control of waterborne diseases, biodiversity loss due to water resource management, and invasions by non-native species. Practical implications of this research are illustrated with numerous examples throughout. This is an invaluable go-to reference for graduate students and researchers interested in river ecology and hydrology, and the links between the two. Describing new related research on spatially-explicit modeling of the s..
River networks as ecological corridors: A coherent ecohydrological perspective
No full textThis paper draws together several lines of argument to suggest that an ecohydrological framework, i.e. laboratory, field and theoretical approaches focused on hydrologic controls on biota, has contributed substantially to our understanding of the function of river networks as ecological corridors. Such function proves relevant to: the spatial ecology of species; population dynamics and biological invasions; the spread of waterborne disease. As examples, we describe metacommunity predictions of fish diversity patterns in the Mississippi-Missouri basin, geomorphic controls imposed by the fluvial landscape on elevational gradients of species\u27 richness, the zebra mussel invasion of the same Mississippi-Missouri river system, and the spread of proliferative kidney disease in salmonid fish. We conclude that spatial descriptions of ecological processes in the fluvial landscape, constrained by their specific hydrologic and ecological dynamics and by the ecosystem matrix for interactions, i.e. the directional dispersal embedded in fluvial and host/pathogen mobility networks, have already produced a remarkably broad range of significant results. Notable scientific and practical perspectives are thus open, in the authors\u27 view, to future developments in ecohydrologic research
On neutral metacommunity patterns of river basins at different scales of aggregation
No full textNeutral metacommunity models for spatial biodiversity patterns are implemented on river networks acting as ecological corridors at different resolution. Coarse-graining elevation fields (under the constraint of preserving the basin mean elevation) produce a set of reconfigured drainage networks. The hydrologic assumption made implies uniform runoff production such that each link has the same habitat capacity. Despite the universal scaling properties shown by river basins regardless of size, climate, vegetation, or exposed lithology, we find that species richness at local and regional scales exhibits resolution-dependent behavior. In addition, we investigate species-area relationships and rank-abundance patterns. The slopes of the species-area relationships, which are consistent over coarse-graining resolutions, match those found in real landscapes in the case of long-distance dispersal. The rank-abundance patterns are independent of the resolution over a broad range of dispersal length. Our results confirm that strong interactions occur between network structure and the dispersal of species and that under the assumption of neutral dynamics, these interactions produce resolution-dependent biodiversity patterns that diverge from expectations following from universal geomorphic scaling laws. Both in theoretical and in applied ecology studying how patterns change in resolution is relevant for understanding how ecological dynamics work in fragmented landscape and for sampling and biodiversity management campaigns, especially in consideration of climate change
Patterns of vegetation biodiversity: The roles of dispersal directionality and river network structure
No full textThis paper investigates the importance of dispersal directionality and river network structure to biodiversity patterns. Our model results suggest that dispersal directionality plays a crucial role in determining biodiversity patterns, even more so than dispersal rates. Dispersal directionality heterogenizes the spatial distribution of abundance, which results in higher extinction rates of rare species and higher β diversity. It induces a few species with very high abundances at the expense of many species with intermediate abundances, thereby lowering α and γ diversities. The river network structure also increases β diversity, i.e., more heterogeneous ecosystems, in comparison to typical two-dimensional landscapes. We find that the interplay between the dispersal directionality and network topology has important consequences on relative species abundance patterns and the distribution of α diversity. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Evolving biodiversity patterns in changing river networks
No full textBiodiversity patterns are governed by landscape structure and dispersal strategies of residing organisms. Landscape, however, changes, and dispersal strategies evolve with it. It is unclear how these biological and geomorphological changes interplay to affect biodiversity patterns. Here we develop metacommunity models that allow for dispersal evolution and implement them in river networks with different structures, mimicking the geomorphological dynamics of fluvial landscape. For a given dispersal kernel, a more compact network structure, where local communities are closer to one another, results in biodiversity patterns characteristic of a more well-mixed environment. When dispersal evolution is present, however, organisms adopt more local dispersal strategies in a more compact network, counteracting the effects of the more well-mixed environment. The combined effects lead to biodiversity patterns different from when dispersal evolution is absent. These findings underscore the importance of taking the interplay between the evolution of dispersal, landscape, and biodiversity patterns into account when studying and managing biodiversity in changing landscape
Spatially explicit conditions for waterborne pathogen invasion
No full textWaterborne pathogens cause many possibly lethal human diseases. We derive the condition for pathogen invasion and subsequent disease outbreak in a territory with specific, space-inhomogeneous characteristics (hydrological, ecological, demographic, and epidemiological). The criterion relies on a spatially explicit model accounting for the density of susceptible and infected individuals and the pathogen concentration in a network of communities linked by human mobility and the water system. Pathogen invasion requires that a dimensionless parameter, the dominant eigenvalue of a generalized reproductive matrix J0, be larger than unity. Conditions for invasion are studied while crucial parameters (population density distribution, contact and water contamination rates, pathogen growth rates) and the characteristics of the networks (connectivity, directional transport, water retention times, mobility patterns) are varied. We analyze both simple, prototypical test cases and realistic landscapes, in which optimal channel networks mimic the water systems and gravitational models describe human mobility. Also, we show that the dominant eigenvector of J0 effectively portrays the geography of epidemic outbreaks, that is, the areas of the studied territory that will be initially affected by an epidemic. This is important for planning an efficient spatial allocation of interventions (e.g., improving sanitation and providing emergency aid and medicines)
Comparative study of ecohydrological streamflow probability distributions
No full textWe run a comparative study of ecohydrological models of streamflow probability distributions (pdfs), p(Q), derived by Botter et al. (2007a, 2009), against field data gathered in different hydrological contexts. Streamflows measured in several catchments across various climatic regions of northeastern Italy and the United States are employed. The relevance of the work stems from the implied analytical predictive ability of hydrologic variability, whose role on stream and riparian ecological processes and large-scale management schemes is fundamental. The tools employed are analytical models of p(Q) (and of the related flow duration curve, D(Q)) derived by coupling suitable storage-discharge relations with a stochastic description of streamflow production through soil moisture dynamics, and are expressed as a function of few macroscopic rainfall, soil, vegetation and geomorphological parameters. In this work we compare the performances of a recent version of the model (which includes the effects of nonlinear subsurface storage-discharge relations) to those provided by the linear version through the application of the models to 13 test catchments belonging to various climatic and geomorphic contexts. A general agreement between predicted and observed daily streamflows pdfs is shown, though differences emerge between the linear and the nonlinear approaches. In particular, by including the effects of a nonlinear storage-discharge relation the model accuracy is shown to increase with respect to the linear scheme in most examined cases. We show that this is not simply attributable to the added parameter but corresponds to a proper likelihood increase. The nonlinear model is shown to exhibit three basic forms for p(Q) (monotonically decreasing with an atom of probability in Q = 0, bell-shaped with the mode close to zero, bell-shaped with the mode close to the mean), corresponding to different hydrologic regimes which are clearly detectable in field data. Inferences on the nonlinear character of the relation between subsurface storage and discharge from observed p(Q) are finally drawn. Copyright 2010 by the American Geophysical Union.Version of Recor
Metapopulation capacity of evolving fluvial landscapes
No full textThe form of fluvial landscapes is known to attain stationary network configurations that settle in dynamically accessible minima of total energy dissipation by landscape-forming discharges. Recent studies have highlighted the role of the dendritic structure of river networks in controlling population dynamics of the species they host and large-scale biodiversity patterns. Here, we systematically investigate the relation between energy dissipation, the physical driver for the evolution of river networks, and the ecological dynamics of their embedded biota. To that end, we use the concept of metapopulation capacity, a measure to link landscape structures with the population dynamics they host. Technically, metapopulation capacity is the leading eigenvalue λM of an appropriate “landscape” matrix subsuming whether a given species is predicted to persist in the long run. λM can conveniently be used to rank different landscapes in terms of their capacity to support viable metapopulations. We study how λM changes in response to the evolving network configurations of spanning trees. Such sequence of configurations is theoretically known to relate network selection to general landscape evolution equations through imperfect searches for dynamically accessible states frustrated by the vagaries of Nature. Results show that the process shaping the metric and the topological properties of river networks, prescribed by physical constraints, leads to a progressive increase in the corresponding metapopulation capacity and therefore on the landscape capacity to support metapopulations—with implications on biodiversity in fluvial ecosystems
- …
