Abstract
Warming in the Arctic is predicted to change freshwater biodiversity through loss of unique taxa and northward range expansion of lower latitude taxa. Detecting such changes requires establishing circumpolar baselines for diversity, and understanding the primary drivers of diversity. We examined benthic macroinvertebrate diversity using a circumpolar dataset of >1,500 Arctic lake and river sites. Rarefied α diversity within catchments was assessed along latitude and temperature gradients. Community composition was assessed through region-scale analysis of β diversity and its components (nestedness and turnover), and analysis of biotic–abiotic relationships. Rarefied α diversity of lakes and rivers declined with increasing latitude, although more strongly across mainland regions than islands. Diversity was strongly related to air temperature, with the lowest diversity in the coldest catchments. Regional dissimilarity was highest when mainland regions were compared with islands, suggesting that connectivity limitations led to the strongest dissimilarity. High contributions of nestedness indicated that island regions contained a subset of the taxa found in mainland regions. High Arctic rivers and lakes were predominately occupied by Chironomidae and Oligochaeta, whereas Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera taxa were more abundant at lower latitudes. Community composition was strongly associated with temperature, although geology and precipitation were also important correlates. The strong association with temperature supports the prediction that warming will increase Arctic macroinvertebrate diversity, although low diversity on islands suggests that this increase will be limited by biogeographical constraints. Long-term harmonised monitoring across the circumpolar region is necessary to detect such changes to diversity and inform science-based management.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 159-175 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Freshwater Biology |
| Volume | 67 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 20 Jan 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:J.L. initiated and designed the study, coordinated data collection, contributed data, harmonised data, conducted analysis, created tables/figures and drafted the paper. J.M.C. and W.G. initiated and designed the study, contributed data, and drafted the paper. B.L. contributed data, harmonised data, conducted data analysis, and contributed to writing/editing paper. All other authors contributed data and contributed to writing/editing paper. The authors wish to thank the CAFF Secretariat and the co‐leads of the CBMP for their support. Thank you to Jani Heino for reviewing and improving the manuscript through constructive comments and editing. The authors also thank three anonymous reviewers and the Associate Editor for their suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript. Thanks to Tim Pascoe of Environment and Climate Change Canada, who helped identify relevant data and obtain data from the CABIN database. We are grateful to the following, who allowed the use of their CABIN monitoring data: Canadian Zinc; Hatfield Consulting; Newfoundland and Labrador Water Resources Management Division; Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) Cooperative Freshwater Ecology Unit; Parks Canada Nahanni National Park Reserve; and Parks Canada Western Arctic Field Unit. Thanks to Brittany Armstrong, Beverley Elliott, Julia Howland, and Raja Wetuschat, who helped with data identification, acquisition, and formatting. We thank everyone who participated in field work to collect the circumpolar benthic macroinvertebrate data used in this study. Data provided by co‐authors was collected with the support of the following funding agencies: Environment and Climate Change Canada; European Union Environment and Climate Programme; Northwest Territories Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program; International Polar Year; Polar Continental Shelf Project; The Icelandic Centre for Research; The DANCEA programme (Denmark); a Natural Environment Research Council studentship (NE/L501712/1), and European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant 262693 (INTERACT), the Norwegian Environment Agency and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. We also thank managers of national monitoring data bases in the Scandinavian countries for their help with data extraction and formatting. The contribution by Maria Baturina and Olga Loskutova was done in the frame of the State Task of the Animals Ecology Department of the Institute of Biology, Komi SC UrD RAS, no. 0414‐2018‐0005 (AAAA‐A17‐117112850235‐2).
Benthic macroinvertebrate data and supporting variables for lakes and rivers were compiled as part of the extensive circumpolar CBMP‐Freshwater Database (housed at CAFF’s open data portal, the Arctic Biodiversity Data Service; abds.is). In Fennoscandia (Finland, Norway, and Sweden), data were primarily acquired from national monitoring programmes of lakes and rivers. In Canada, river macroinvertebrate data were available from the Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network (CABIN) of Environment and Climate Change Canada; however, few lake monitoring data were available through this programme. A subset of data from Alaska originated from the National Aquatic Resource Surveys funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Remaining data from Canada, U.S.A., and Fennoscandia, as well as data from other countries and regions (Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Russia, and Svalbard), primarily originated from academic research and monitoring related to industry. See Appendix S1 for more details.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. Freshwater Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Keywords
- benthic invertebrates
- dispersal
- diversity
- high latitude
- lake
- river
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Aquatic Science
