{"id":6225,"date":"2019-08-09T09:39:18","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T13:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology-new\/?p=6225"},"modified":"2019-08-12T08:41:51","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T12:41:51","slug":"missing-shredders-cant-cut-it-in-urban-streams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/news\/missing-shredders-cant-cut-it-in-urban-streams\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing Shredders Can’t Cut It in Urban Streams"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is available in Spanish here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Decomposition is a team sport that requires nearly every player in an ecosystem, biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living), to work together.\u00a0 Think of a large leaf floating in a stream\u2013the temperature of the water and air, chemicals present, microbes, insects, stream flow, sediment load, and stream channel shape all affect the decomposition rate of the leaf.\u00a0 This rate will change if any one of those players is increased\/decreased or missing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Applied Ecology<\/a> Prof. <\/span>Alonso Ramirez<\/span><\/a> and colleagues compared the functional diversity of streams in Puerto Rico by placing leaf bags in urban and rural streams and measuring the rate leaves decomposed.\u00a0 Each bag started with 5g of ficus leaves and the bags were weighed over time. The team found that urban streams\u2019 leaf litter bags remained the heaviest while rural stream bags became lighter as the leaves decomposed.\u00a0 They also noted that streams in urban areas had fewer <\/span>shredder<\/span><\/i> insects present, which are larvae forms of crane flies and caddisflies.\u00a0 Shredders live up to their name by breaking down organic matter into manageable nutrition chunks for other insects, microbes, and fish.\u00a0 Without shredders, the rest of the ecosystem players are unable to fulfill their roles in the decomposition process.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThose streams crossing our cities are living ecosystems that enrich our quality of life,\u201d says Ramirez.\u00a0 \u201cUnderstanding how streams function is an important step in their protection.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Urban streams that lack shredders are not able to fulfill their ecosystem service of decomposition.\u00a0 When streams are unable to process and use up these materials, they end up causing issues further downstream affecting coastal ecosystems.\u00a0 Prof. Ramirez and colleagues recommend that urban stream designs should improve water quality to increase the amount of functional diversity and prevent negative effects on the ecosystem services we rely on.<\/span><\/p>\n

The paper, \u201c<\/span>Leaf litter decomposition and macroinvertebrate assemblages along an urban stream gradient in Puerto Rico<\/span><\/a>,\u201d was published in Biotropica July 24. First author of the paper is <\/span>Leticia Classen\u2010Rodr\u00edguez<\/span> of Saint Louis University. The paper was co-authored by Pablo E. Guti\u00e9rrez\u2010Fonseca at the Department of Biology & Center for Research in Marine Science and Limnology in the University of Costa Rica. The work was done with support from the Puerto Rico\u2010Louis Stokes\u2019 Alliance for Minority Participation (AMP) and the Luquillo Long\u2010Term Ecological Research (LTER) program, both funded by the US National Science Foundation.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"This post is available in Spanish here<\/a>.<\/em>\r\n\r\nDecomposition is a team sport that requires nearly every player in an ecosystem, biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living), to work together.\u00a0 Think of a large leaf floating in a stream\u2013the temperature of the water and air, chemicals present, microbes, insects, stream flow, sediment load, and stream channel shape all affect the decomposition rate of the leaf.\u00a0 This rate will change if any one of those players is increased\/decreased or missing.<\/span>\r\n\r\nApplied Ecology<\/a> Prof. <\/span>Alonso Ramirez<\/span><\/a> and colleagues compared the functional diversity of streams in Puerto Rico by placing leaf bags in urban and rural streams and measuring the rate leaves decomposed.\u00a0 Each bag started with 5g of ficus leaves and the bags were weighed over time. The team found that urban streams\u2019 leaf litter bags remained the heaviest while rural stream bags became lighter as the leaves decomposed.\u00a0 They also noted that streams in urban areas had fewer <\/span>shredder<\/span><\/i> insects present, which are larvae forms of crane flies and caddisflies.\u00a0 Shredders live up to their name by breaking down organic matter into manageable nutrition chunks for other insects, microbes, and fish.\u00a0 Without shredders, the rest of the ecosystem players are unable to fulfill their roles in the decomposition process.<\/span>\r\n

\u201cThose streams crossing our cities are living ecosystems that enrich our quality of life,\u201d says Ramirez.\u00a0 \u201cUnderstanding how streams function is an important step in their protection.\u201d<\/span><\/blockquote>\r\nUrban streams that lack shredders are not able to fulfill their ecosystem service of decomposition.\u00a0 When streams are unable to process and use up these materials, they end up causing issues further downstream affecting coastal ecosystems.\u00a0 Prof. Ramirez and colleagues recommend that urban stream designs should improve water quality to increase the amount of functional diversity and prevent negative effects on the ecosystem services we rely on.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe paper, \u201c<\/span>Leaf litter decomposition and macroinvertebrate assemblages along an urban stream gradient in Puerto Rico<\/span><\/a>,\u201d was published in Biotropica July 24. First author of the paper is <\/span>Leticia Classen\u2010Rodr\u00edguez<\/span> of Saint Louis University. The paper was co-authored by Pablo E. Guti\u00e9rrez\u2010Fonseca at the Department of Biology & Center for Research in Marine Science and Limnology in the University of Costa Rica. The work was done with support from the Puerto Rico\u2010Louis Stokes\u2019 Alliance for Minority Participation (AMP) and the Luquillo Long\u2010Term Ecological Research (LTER) program, both funded by the US National Science Foundation.<\/span>"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Decomposition is a team sport that requires nearly every player in an ecosystem, biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living), to work together. Prof. Alonso Ramirez’s latest work measures decomposition rates in urban and rural streams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2094,"featured_media":6226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,5,1],"tags":[128,130,157,159,158],"class_list":["post-6225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-impact","category-research","category-uncategorized","tag-alonso-ramirez","tag-aquatic-research","tag-functional-diversity","tag-stream-ecology","tag-urban-sprawl"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6225"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6247,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225\/revisions\/6247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/applied-ecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}