Human activities' fingerprint on multitrophic biodiversity and ecosystem functions across a major river catchment in China

• DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15357
• Publication Date: 2020-09-16T22:56:24Z
• Authors: Feilong Li; Florian Altermatt; Jianghua Yang; Shuqing An; Aimin Li; Xiaowei Zhang
• Keywords: China; 2306 Global and Planetary Change; 2300 General Environmental Science; 10127 Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies; 03 medical and health sciences; Rivers; Animals; Humans; Human Activities; river networks; Ecosystem; Phylogeny; biodiversity; 0303 health sciences; land use; Biodiversity; 15. Life on land; functional diversity; taxonomic diversity; 13. Climate action; 2304 Environmental Chemistry; 570 Life sciences; biology; 590 Animals (Zoology); ecosystem functions; phylogenetic diversity; 2303 Ecology

AbstractHuman‐induced global change dramatically alters individual aspects of river biodiversity, such as taxonomic, phylogenetic or functional diversity, and is predicted to lead to losses of associated ecosystem functions. Understanding these losses and dependencies are critical to human well‐being. Until now, however, most studies have only looked either at individual organismal groups or single functions, and little is known on the effect of human activities on multitrophic biodiversity and on ecosystem multifunctionality in riverine ecosystem. Here we profiled biodiversity from bacteria to invertebrates based on environmental DNA (hereafter, ‘eDNA’) samples across a major river catchment in China, and analysed their dependencies with multiple ecosystem functions, especially linked to C/N/P‐cycling. Firstly, we found a spatial cross‐taxon congruence pattern of communities' structure in the network of the Shaying river, which was related to strong environmental filtering due to human land use. Secondly, human land use explained the decline of multitrophic and multifaceted biodiversity and ecosystem functions, but increased functional redundancy in the riverine ecosystem. Thirdly, biodiversity and ecosystem function relationships at an integrative level showed a concave‐up (non‐saturating) shape. Finally, structural equation modeling suggested that land use affects ecosystem functions through biodiversity‐mediated pathways, including biodiversity loss and altered community interdependence in multitrophic groups. Our study highlights the value of a complete and inclusive assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem functions for an integrated land‐use management of riverine ecosystems.