Energy limitation or sensitive predators? Trophic and non-trophic impacts of wastewater pollution on stream food webs.
community size spectra
energy transfer
food webs
stable isotopes
water quality
Journal
Ecology
ISSN: 1939-9170
Titre abrégé: Ecology
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 0043541
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
02 2022
02 2022
Historique:
received:
30
05
2021
accepted:
20
08
2021
pubmed:
19
11
2021
medline:
1
4
2022
entrez:
18
11
2021
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Impacts of environmental stressors on food webs are often difficult to predict because trophic levels can respond in divergent ways, and biotic interactions may dampen or amplify responses. Here we studied food-web-level impacts of urban wastewater pollution, a widespread source of degradation that can alter stream food webs via top-down and bottom-up processes. Wastewater may (1) subsidize primary producers by decreasing nutrient limitation, inducing a wide-bottomed trophic pyramid. However, (2) wastewater may also reduce the quality and diversity of resources, which could decrease energy transfer efficiency by reducing consumer fitness, leading to predator starvation. Additionally, (3) if higher trophic levels are particularly sensitive to pollution, primary consumers could be released from predation pressure. We tested these hypotheses in 10 pairs of stream sites located upstream and downstream of urban wastewater effluents with different pollutant levels. We found that wastewater pollution reduced predator richness by ∼34%. Community size spectra (CSS) slopes were steeper downstream than upstream of wastewater effluents in all except one impact site where predators became locally extinct. Further, variation in downstream CSS slopes were correlated with pollution loads: the more polluted the stream, the steeper the CSS. We estimate that wastewater pollution decreased energy transfer efficiencies to primary consumers by ∼70%, limiting energy supply to predators. Additionally, traits increasing vulnerability to chemical pollution were overrepresented among predators, which presented compressed trophic niches (δ
Substances chimiques
Waste Water
0
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
e03587Informations de copyright
© 2021 The Authors. Ecology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Ecological Society of America.
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