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Late Quaternary chironomid community structure shaped by rate and magnitude of climate change

Late Quaternary chironomid community structure shaped by rate and magnitude of climate change
Late Quaternary chironomid community structure shaped by rate and magnitude of climate change
Much is known about how climate change impacts ecosystem richness and turnover, but we have less understanding of its influence on ecosystem structures. Here, we use ecological metrics (beta diversity, compositional disorder and network skewness) to quantify the community structural responses of temperature-sensitive chironomids (Diptera: Chironomidae) during the Late Glacial (14,700 – 11,700 cal a BP) and Holocene (11,700 cal a BP to present). Analyses demonstrate high turnover (beta diversity) of chironomid composition across both epochs; however, structural metrics stayed relatively intact. Compositional disorder and skewness show greatest structural change in the Younger Dryas, following the rapid, high- magnitude climate change at the Bølling–Allerød - Younger Dryas transition. There were fewer climate-related structural changes across the early to mid-late Holocene, where climate change was more gradual and lower in magnitude. The reduced impact on structural metrics could be due to greater functional resilience provided by the wider chironomid community, or to the replacement of same functional-type taxa in the network structure. These results provide insight into how future rapid climate change may alter chironomid communities and could suggest that while turnover may remain high under a rapidly warming climate, community structural dynamics retain some resilience.
0267-8179
360-376
Mayfield, Roseanna Jane
791d3e42-f345-42b1-b5c0-b6940f2beff6
Langdon, Peter
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Doncaster, Charles
0eff2f42-fa0a-4e35-b6ac-475ad3482047
Dearing, John
dff37300-b8a6-4406-ad84-89aa01de03d7
Wang, Rong
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Velle, Gaute
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Davies, Kimberley
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Brooks, Steve
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Mayfield, Roseanna Jane
791d3e42-f345-42b1-b5c0-b6940f2beff6
Langdon, Peter
95b97671-f9fe-4884-aca6-9aa3cd1a6d7f
Doncaster, Charles
0eff2f42-fa0a-4e35-b6ac-475ad3482047
Dearing, John
dff37300-b8a6-4406-ad84-89aa01de03d7
Wang, Rong
fd4ca2d0-78f2-40c2-aad1-355e7f3f3022
Velle, Gaute
fee6f1b6-0b50-4917-8e51-a4ddba8b7e1a
Davies, Kimberley
c9f48199-e200-4d41-95bf-5069bb2fdc3e
Brooks, Steve
6e0959df-f964-4fd5-a15f-1d1af6ff49a1

Mayfield, Roseanna Jane, Langdon, Peter, Doncaster, Charles, Dearing, John, Wang, Rong, Velle, Gaute, Davies, Kimberley and Brooks, Steve (2021) Late Quaternary chironomid community structure shaped by rate and magnitude of climate change. Journal of Quaternary Science, 36 (3), 360-376. (doi:10.1002/jqs.3301).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Much is known about how climate change impacts ecosystem richness and turnover, but we have less understanding of its influence on ecosystem structures. Here, we use ecological metrics (beta diversity, compositional disorder and network skewness) to quantify the community structural responses of temperature-sensitive chironomids (Diptera: Chironomidae) during the Late Glacial (14,700 – 11,700 cal a BP) and Holocene (11,700 cal a BP to present). Analyses demonstrate high turnover (beta diversity) of chironomid composition across both epochs; however, structural metrics stayed relatively intact. Compositional disorder and skewness show greatest structural change in the Younger Dryas, following the rapid, high- magnitude climate change at the Bølling–Allerød - Younger Dryas transition. There were fewer climate-related structural changes across the early to mid-late Holocene, where climate change was more gradual and lower in magnitude. The reduced impact on structural metrics could be due to greater functional resilience provided by the wider chironomid community, or to the replacement of same functional-type taxa in the network structure. These results provide insight into how future rapid climate change may alter chironomid communities and could suggest that while turnover may remain high under a rapidly warming climate, community structural dynamics retain some resilience.

Text
JQS-20-0162.R1 - Accepted Manuscript
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 28 February 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 26 March 2021
Published date: 5 April 2021

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 447707
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/447707
ISSN: 0267-8179
PURE UUID: cf4251db-4a52-497c-abdd-351fc272e39f
ORCID for Peter Langdon: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2724-2643
ORCID for Charles Doncaster: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9406-0693
ORCID for John Dearing: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1466-9640

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Date deposited: 18 Mar 2021 17:52
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 02:59

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Contributors

Author: Roseanna Jane Mayfield
Author: Peter Langdon ORCID iD
Author: John Dearing ORCID iD
Author: Rong Wang
Author: Gaute Velle
Author: Kimberley Davies
Author: Steve Brooks

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