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Activity Funded

Food web rewiring under climate warming: integrating life history traits with topological network characteristics

Reconexão das cadeias tróficas em cenários de aquecimento: integração dos parâmetros da história de vida com as características topológicas

Reference
2022.08907.PTDC
Project Start Date
2023-09-01
Project End Date
2027-08-31
Principal Investigator
Coinvestigator
Scientific Area
Natural sciences
Funding Program
Concurso de Projetos de I&D em Todos os Domínios Científicos - 2022 - ICDT

Abstract

Understanding temperature impacts on species interactions and ecological networks is critical to develop more realistic predictions of the ecological responses of communities and ecosystems to climate warming, particularly in biodiversity and climate change hot spots, such as Mediterranean freshwater ecosystems. Recent evidence suggests that warming reconfigures - or rewires - trophic networks through major structural changes, for instance in the number of trophic groups and links. Species may go locally extinct, migrate out of or into the system, or change their diets. Generalists, usually with high mobility and dietary plasticity, are major players in the rewiring process. The main goal of this project is to study community rewiring under increased temperatures, isolating the role played by diet plasticity from the role played by mobility, and further addressing the possible effects of temperature on the induction of diet plasticity. For this we benefit from the knowledge previously gathered by the project team on an understudied ecosystem type that is prevalent in several world regions and is bound to expand in the future. The fauna of Mediterranean intermittent streams is confined to isolated stream pools during a large part of the spring and summer. Variability in exposure to the sun creates an array of “natural mesocosms” where generalist freshwater fishes – the top predators, exerting top-down control of the trophic network - are blocked from migrating, and where ecosystem rewiring is thus mediated only by prey removal (according to their vulnerability or temperature) and predator diet plasticity. Structured in four tasks, the project will study the communities of Mediterranean intermittent streams. These are among the most disturbed ecosystems in the world and harbour a remarkable diversity of endemic and highly endangered species. Therefore, by targeting species and communities from ecosystems priority for conservation, the project is aligned with several Sustainable Development goals of the 2030 Agenda. We will develop an integrative approach involving four components: i) an analysis of trophic networks, based on sampling the major trophic groups and on the establishment of trophic links via DNA metabarcoding of gut contents, ii) an evaluation of the species traits that make them vulnerable to warming, including the experimental determination of the critical thermal maximum for those not yet studied, iii) an analysis of the fish diet shifts that take place as the stream pools become isolated and warmer from spring to summer (using stable isotopes), iv) a multiple interactions network approach to the analysis of these communities and of the role that diet plasticity takes on their rewiring. Previous work by members of the project team provided empirical evidence of temperature-induced dietary shifts in a variety of freshwater species, and suggested that temperature affects trophic interactions differently. The project team gathers complementary expertise on stream communities, DNA metabarcoding, stable isotopes, food webs and network modelling, presenting an ambitious proposal aiming to capture the complexity of temperature effects on ecological networks in freshwater ecosystems. This innovative project will greatly increase the understanding of warming effects on real ecological networks and contribute to elucidate the role of diet plasticity on generalist-dominated communities.

Institutions

Main Institutions

  • FCiênciasID Associação para a Investigação e Desenvolvimento de Ciências (Fciências.ID)

Other Institutions

  • Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement - Centre de Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (INRAE)
  • School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London (SBCS, QM)
  • Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente ULisboa (MARE)

Funding 249.820,19 €

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - Portugal

249.820,19 €