Stability of aquatic food chains to press and pulse perturbations

Session: Great Lakes Tributaries: Connecting Land and Lakes (6)

James Hood, Aquatic Ecology Lab, The Ohio State University, [email protected]
Tamara Harms, Department of Biology and Wildlife, Institute of Arctic Biology; University of Alaska Fairbanks, [email protected]
Mark Scheuerell, ; Northwest Fisheries Science Center; National Marine Fisheries Service; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, [email protected]
Richard Barbiero, CSRA, [email protected]
Ed Buskey, University of Texas Marine Science Institute, [email protected]
Warren Currie, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, [email protected]
Chris Patrick, Life Science Department, Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, [email protected]
Jake Walsh, Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin – Madison, [email protected]

Abstract

Aquatic ecosystems are subject to myriad press and pulse perturbations including nutrient and sediment inputs, invasive species, floods, droughts, and increasing temperature. We sought to determine the attributes of ecosystems that confer stability to perturbations, specifically the influence of interaction strength, fast and slow turnover pools, and ecosystem characteristics. We curated long-term data from lake and estuary ecosystems (including Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, Bay of Quinte, Acton Lake, and Aransas Bay) of varying size (e.g., 2-58,000 km²) describing nutrient concentrations, primary producers, consumers, and predators. We also curated data sets for relevant press and pulse perturbations including precipitation, air temperature, ice cover, riverine inputs, and invasive species. We applied multivariate autoregressive state-space (MARSS) models to estimate stability metrics, including reactivity of the ecosystem to perturbation and the return rate of the ecosystem following a perturbation. Since perturbations radiate through food chains in different ways, we explored the effect of top-down, bottom-up, and diffuse pathways of perturbation radiation through ecosystems. Our preliminary results indicate that riverine sediment inputs propagate through lake ecosystems following a variety of radiative models. This meta-analysis of aquatic time series data contributes to our understanding of the factors shaping the stability of aquatic ecosystems to disturbance.