Climate change and biodiversity loss impacts on trophic networks and energy flux in neotropical freshwater microecosystems

• Grant number: 23/10481-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Support Program for Fixating Young Doctors
• Effective date (Start): August 01, 2023
• Effective date (End): June 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Ecosystems Ecology
• Acordo de Cooperação: CNPq
• Principal Investigator: Raul Costa Pereira
• Grantee: Pablo Augusto Poleto Antiqueira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 23/02850-3 - Climate change and biodiversity loss impacts on trophic networks and energy flux in neotropical freshwater microecosystems, AP.R

Abstract

Climate change and biodiversity loss are pervasive anthropogenic causes of changes in the structure and functioning of ecosystems. Climate change alters biodiversity directly by affecting individual physiological traits and indirectly via interactions between organisms. However, although these effects on biodiversity are unequivocal, little is known about their consequences on multitrophic interactions (i.e., interactions that link more than two trophic levels) and their impacts on ecosystem functioning. This gap becomes even more evident in neotropical freshwater aquatic ecosystems. In this sense, in this project, we will use two novel experimental approaches in an empirical system of tank bromeliads to investigate: i) how variation in the amount and uniformity of rainfall modulates direct and indirect interactions in natural microcosms along a latitudinal neotropical gradient (from latitudes 18°N to 29°S); ii) how warming and loss of top predator diversity regulate the magnitude of direct and indirect interactions in food webs; and (iii) how such impacts affect the energy flux in these two experimental systems. With broad geographic and taxonomic representation, our experimental approaches will allow us to explore generalities and local contingencies in food web responses to climate change and how such responses reverberate in energy flux within and across different ecosystems. In addition, our project will develop new tools and approaches toward a predictive framework of the impact of multiple anthropogenic changes on the complex networks of ecological interactions that sustain the functioning of tropical ecosystems.