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rhiannon standing in autumn forest

Rhiannon Mondav

Postdoc

rhiannon standing in autumn forest

Nutrients on the Move: Investigating Large Scale Fatty Acid Exports from European Ponds Via Emerging Insects

Author

  • Lena Fehlinger
  • Fernando Chaguaceda
  • Pietro Tirozzi
  • Marina Tomas-Martin
  • Ellinor Jakobsson
  • Teofana Chonova
  • Benjamin Misteli
  • Alberto Scotti
  • Jorge f. Henriques
  • Juan Rubio-Rios
  • Daniel Morant
  • Pierre Marle
  • Vojtech Kolar
  • Olivera Stamenkovic
  • Rhiannon Mondav
  • Karla Münzner
  • Stephen e. Osakpolor
  • Luca Bonacina
  • Veronica Nava
  • Emma Drohan
  • Encarnation Fenoy
  • Alfredo Llorente
  • Margaux Mathieu-Resuge
  • Dariusz Halabowski
  • Noël P.d. Juvigny-Khenafou
  • Joana Martelo
  • Liam Nash
  • Julie c. Fahy
  • David Cunillera-Montcusí
  • David Balibrea
  • Biljana Rimcheska
Show all

Summary, in English

Permanent ponds represent key landscape components that support biodiversity and supply various ecosystem services. Notably, the export of aquatic subsidies to land via emerging insects, may significantly influence terrestrial food webs. Various factors, including eutrophication, can influence these exports. Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), which greatly enhance consumer fitness, are among the most important exported components. However, the patterns and drivers of dietary exports from ponds via insects remain poorly known, particularly at continental scales. Here, we analyzed the exports of biomass, lipid, and fatty acid contents from emerging insects, sampled in 36 ponds across 11 European countries, over four seasons. We found that both biomass and fatty acid exports decreased with increasing latitude, and were higher in spring and summer. These seasonal effects also increased with higher latitudes. Temperature was the most important predictor of insect biomass, explaining 27.6% of the total variation and showing an unimodal response. This suggests increasing temperature may promote exports in colder regions and seasons, whereas it may negatively influence biomass exports in already warm regions. The exports of total lipids, PUFA, and eicosapentaenoic acid were correlated to exported biomass, while those of docosahexaenoic acid were linked to the emergence of Chaoboridae. Moreover, our findings indicated that PUFA contents were affected by taxonomic composition of insect communities and pond trophic state (indicated by chlorophyll a). Two of the correlates identified here (temperature and trophic state) are influenced by anthropogenic activity via climate and land use change respectively. Thus, human activity impacts the food webs in and around ponds by influencing the quantity and quality of nutritional exports.

Department/s

  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
  • Centre for Environmental and Climate Science (CEC)

Publishing year

2024

Language

English

Publication/Series

Preprint

Document type

Preprint

Publisher

SSRN

Topic

  • Ecology (including Biodiversity Conservation)
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Analytical Chemistry

Keywords

  • freshwater
  • PUFA
  • food web
  • ecology
  • small water bodies
  • biomass

Status

Submitted