10.5061/DRYAD.8PK0P2NQH
Brauns, Mario
0000-0002-5012-9721
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
Allen, Daniel C.
Pennsylvania State University
Boëchat, Iola G.
Federal University of São João del-Rei
Cross, Wyatt F.
Montana State University
Ferreira, Verónica
University of Coimbra
Graeber, Daniel
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
Patrick, Christopher J.
Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Peipoch, Marc
Stroud Water Research Center
von Schiller, Daniel
0000-0002-9493-3244
University of Barcelona
University of Barcelona
Gücker, Björn
0000-0002-0884-8650
Federal University of São João del-Rei
Dataset: A global synthesis of human impacts on the multifunctionality of
streams and rivers
Dryad
dataset
2022
meta-analysis
food web
secondary production
Leaf litter decomposition
multiple stressors
nutrient uptake
whole-stream metabolism
streams and rivers
FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences
Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
https://ror.org/00snfqn58
CEEIND/02484/2018
Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
https://ror.org/00snfqn58
UIDB/04292/2020
Government of Catalonia
https://ror.org/01bg62x04
2017SGR0976
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
2022-04-27T00:00:00Z
2022-04-27T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16210
136344 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Human impacts, particularly nutrient pollution and land-use change, have
caused significant declines in the quality and quantity of freshwater
resources. Most global assessments have concentrated on species diversity
and composition, but effects on the multifunctionality of streams and
rivers remain unclear. Here, we analyse the most comprehensive compilation
of stream ecosystem functions to date to provide an overview of the
responses of nutrient uptake, leaf litter decomposition, ecosystem
productivity, and food web complexity to six globally pervasive human
stressors. We show that human stressors inhibited ecosystem functioning
for most stressor-function pairs. Nitrate uptake efficiency was most
affected and was inhibited by 347% due to agriculture. However,
concomitant negative and positive effects were common even within a given
stressor-function pair. Some part of this variability in effect direction
could be explained by the structural heterogeneity of the landscape and
latitudinal position of the streams. Ranking human stressors by their
absolute effects on ecosystem multifunctionality revealed significant
effects for all studied stressors, with wastewater effluents (194%),
agriculture (148%), and urban land use (137%) having the strongest
effects. Our results demonstrate that we are at risk of losing the
functional backbone of streams and rivers if human stressors persist in
contemporary intensity, and that freshwaters are losing critical ecosystem
services that humans rely on. We advocate for more studies on the effects
of multiple stressors on ecosystem multifunctionality to improve the
functional understanding of human impacts. Finally, freshwater management
must shift its focus towards an ecological function-based approach and
needs to develop strategies for maintaining or restoring ecosystem
functioning of streams and rivers.
We conducted a systematic literature survey in electronic reference
databases (Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science) for papers
published in international, indexed journals that studied the effects of
human stressors on running water ecosystem functions. We considered the
following ecosystem attributes in our initial research: retention of
dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), ammonia,
nitrate and soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP), food web complexity, leaf
litter decomposition, secondary production and whole-stream metabolism.
Pairwise combinations of stressors and functions were used as keywords
(e.g., for the pair food web vs. agriculture: food web AND [freshwater OR
river OR stream] AND [agriculture]. We considered all articles and
previous meta-analyses published in English until July 31st, 2020. We
included primary studies that satisfied the following criteria: (i) they
addressed the effect of human stressors on at least one ecosystem
function, (ii) they were conducted in the field, i.e., streams, rivers,
and streamside channels, (iii) they compared at least one reference and
one impacted site, and (iv) they reported means, variation, and sample
sizes for reference and impacted conditions.