Macrophyte growth in a future world: the effect of Global Change on plant resilience to hydrodynamic forces, on litter quality and on decomposition.

Climate change seems inevitable over the next few decades. The RCP6.0 scenario of the IPCC predicts the atmospheric CO2 concentration to double by 2100, and the associated climatic shifts will affect many ecosystems. However freshwater ecosystems are poorly studied compared to their terrestrial counterparts, and therefore we are uncertain as to how these systems will respond to climate change. On the other hand it is well established that the predicted changes in precipitation – longer droughts and more extreme rainfall events – will affect rivers and wetlands tremendously. Aquatic plants are some of the key primary producers in these rivers, which govern (i) the aquatic food web (plant material consumed by decomposers) and (ii) biogeochemical processing (nutrient and carbon cycling). Enhanced CO2 and increased nutrient concentrations may lead to an increase in the production of these aquatic plants. Yet the more severe flood pulses are likely to affect plant survival, leading to increased plant mortality and therefore an increase in litter in the system. Climate change may also affect aquatic ecosystems by affecting plants nutrient stoichiometry. Both plant quantity and quality are key driving factors for the aquatic decomposers' food web, which would have knock-on effects for the entire food web. We hypothesize that the performance of macro-invertebrates and bacteria may change, which leads to changing decomposition rates and a direct impact on nutrient and carbon cycling.

Keywords:GLOBAL CHANGE

Disciplines:Plant biology

Project type:Collaboration project