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Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Benthic invertebrates; biodiversity; climate; functional traits; semi-arid streams
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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Structure And Functional Composition Of Macroinvertebrate Communities In Coastal Plain Streams Across A Precipitation Gradient, Fernando R. Carvallo, Bradley A. Strickland, Sean K. Kinard, Brandi Kiel Reese, James Derek Hogan, Christopher J. Patrick
Structure And Functional Composition Of Macroinvertebrate Communities In Coastal Plain Streams Across A Precipitation Gradient, Fernando R. Carvallo, Bradley A. Strickland, Sean K. Kinard, Brandi Kiel Reese, James Derek Hogan, Christopher J. Patrick
VIMS Articles
Climate change is expected to alter rainfall and temperature regimes across the world. The hydrology and riparian zone vegetation of lotic ecosystems are tightly linked to rainfall and a mechanistic understanding of the effects of rainfall on lotic ecosystems is needed to forecast the ecological impacts of climate change. However, it is difficult to isolate rainfall effects from other environmental variables that covary across climates. To address this, we leveraged a unique steep rainfall gradient with few covarying changes in elevation, temperature, and geology to evaluate the effects of rainfall on stream invertebrate communities. We surveyed nine streams in the …