Oceanus Seminar Series - 21 APR

OCEANUS SEMINAR SERIES | Daniel Crespo | 21 Abr | 11h30

Title: Effect of biodiversity evenness changes in the estuarine ecosystem functioning, following multiple extreme weather events

Name: Daniel Crespo

Cyclic and transitional characteristics of estuarine systems are responsible for masking most impacts of human activities, which includes changes in climate parameters. Among those changes, extreme climate events such as droughts and heat waves are responsible for prompt effects on biological communities, affecting ecosystem stability, with faster responses on species evenness than on richness, affecting the ecosystem performance. In this work, simplified communities with 3 different evenness levels were tested against scenarios of drought (elevated salinity) and heat waves. Fundamental ecological processes and functions were measured, such as particle reworking and nutrient release. While the environmental forcing had significant impacts on the measured endpoints, nutrient generation was generally uncoupled from particle reworking. Particle reworking was mostly influenced by evenness values. Despite the influence of climate stressors and biological composition, there were undisclosed processes involved on the transfer of nutrients across the sediment/water interface. This uncoupling between processes at macro and micro scales needs to be addressed in the future.

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