Ecological responses to experimental glacier-runoff reduction in alpine rivers

Sophie Cauvy-Fraunié (), Patricio Andino, Rodrigo Espinosa, Roger Calvez, Dean Jacobsen and Olivier Dangles ()
Additional contact information
Sophie Cauvy-Fraunié: Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), UMR EGCE, IRD-247 CNRS-UP Sud-9191
Patricio Andino: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas
Rodrigo Espinosa: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas
Roger Calvez: Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), UMR G-EAU
Dean Jacobsen: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas
Olivier Dangles: Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), UMR EGCE, IRD-247 CNRS-UP Sud-9191

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Glacier retreat is a worldwide phenomenon with important consequences for the hydrological cycle and downstream ecosystem structure and functioning. To determine the effects of glacier retreat on aquatic communities, we conducted a 4-year flow manipulation in a tropical glacier-fed stream. Compared with an adjacent reference stream, meltwater flow reduction induces significant changes in benthic fauna community composition in less than 2 weeks. Also, both algal and herbivore biomass significantly increase in the manipulated stream as a response to flow reduction. After the flow reduction ceased, the system requires 14–16 months to return to its pre-perturbation state. These results are supported by a multi-stream survey of sites varying in glacial influence, showing an abrupt increase in algal and herbivore biomass below 11% glacier cover in the catchment. This study shows that flow reduction strongly affects glacier-fed stream biota, prefiguring profound ecological effects of ongoing glacier retreat on aquatic systems.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12025 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms12025

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12025

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().