Crop cover and nutrient levels mediate the effects of land management type on aquatic invertebrate richness in prairie potholes.

Autor: Kirk DA; Aquila Conservation & Environment Consulting, Carlsbad Springs, Ontario, Canada., Collins SJ; Geomatics and Landscape Ecology Laboratory (GLEL), Ottawa-Carleton Institute of Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada., Martínez-Lanfranco JA; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science Building, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada., Martin AE; National Wildlife Research Centre, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.; Department of Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2024 Apr 16; Vol. 19 (4), pp. e0295001. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Apr 16 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0295001
Abstrakt: Aquatic invertebrates provide important ecosystem services, including decomposition and nutrient cycling, and provide nutrition for birds, fish, amphibians, and bats. Thus, the effects of agricultural land management practices on aquatic invertebrates are relevant to farmers, wildlife biologists, and policymakers. Here, we used data on aquatic invertebrates (159 taxa, 73 to species, 75 to genus/family) collected in 40 wetlands in the Canadian prairies to test for direct and indirect relationships among land management types (perennial cover, organic, minimum tillage, conventional), landscape structure (cropland and wetland cover within the surrounding landscape), and water quality (total nutrient levels, turbidity) on species richness of invertebrates using structural equation modelling. Additionally, we assessed variation in community composition within and among wetlands in different land use management types using a direct gradient analysis and variance partitioning. The direct effects of land management type were not supported but we found strong supportive evidence that effects of land management on richness were significantly mediated through cropland cover, nutrient levels, and turbidity. After controlling for these indirect effects, aquatic invertebrate richness decreased along a gradient from the lowest to the highest farming intensity, i.e., richness decreased from perennial cover sites to organic to minimum tillage to conventional sites. Support was also found for negative effects of nutrient levels and turbidity on richness. We did not find significant support for differences in gamma diversity or a simple test (homogeneity of multivariate dispersions) of differences in turnover among land management types; however, land management had a significant effect in distance-based redundancy analysis. Taken together, these results suggest that focusing conservation efforts on reducing cropland erosion and nutrient inputs to wetlands and creating more permanent cover may be effective strategies for conserving richness of aquatic invertebrates in agricultural landscapes in this region.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Kirk et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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