Spatiotemporal variability in Swedish lake ecosystems

Studying ecosystem dynamics is critical to monitoring and managing linked systems of humans and nature. Due to the growth of tools and techniques for collecting data, information on the condition of these systems is more widely available. While there are a variety of approaches for mining and assessing data, there is a need for methods to detect latent characteristics in ecosystems linked to temporal and spatial patterns of change. Resilience-based approaches have been effective at not only identifying environmental change but also providing warning in advance of critical transitions in social-ecological systems (SES). In this study, we examine the usefulness of one such method, Fisher Information (FI) for spatiotemporal analysis. FI is used to assess patterns in data and has been established as an effective tool for capturing complex system dynamics to include regimes and regime shifts. We employed FI to assess the biophysical condition of eighty-five Swedish lakes from 1996-2018. Results showed that FI captured spatiotemporal changes in the Swedish lakes and identified distinct spatial patterns above and below the Limes Norrlandicus, a hard ecotone boundary which separates northern and southern ecoregions in Sweden. Further, it revealed that spatial variance changed approaching this boundary. Our results demonstrate the utility of this resilience-based approach for spatiotemporal and spatial regimes analyses linked to monitoring and managing critical watersheds and waterbodies impacted by accelerating environmental change

Introducing the sounds of data to the study of politics: a choir of global legitimacy crises

This article introduces an innovative method to describe data with sounds in political science. The method, known in ecology, physics, and musicology as “sonification,” operates by linking sound signals to quantifiable observations. We us it to compose a choir of legitimacy crises in global governance from 1994 to 2014, and to negotiate a familiar divide in research on how legitimacy should be measured. Scholars predominantly prefer one of two approaches to measure legitimacy quantitatively, either looking at political trust or public contestation of political institutions. We illustrate the usefulness of sonification to subsume both positions in this divide. More generally, we argue that sonification can enhance public communication of scientific results and extract meanings from observations that go unnoticed in visual and verbal representations, in particular with relevance to describing time series data on anything from the spread of pandemics to violent conflicts and economic inequalities

Spatiotemporal variability in Swedish lake ecosystems

Studying ecosystem dynamics is critical to monitoring and managing linked systems of humans and nature. Due to the growth of tools and techniques for collecting data, information on the condition of these systems is more widely available. While there are a variety of approaches for mining and assessing data, there is a need for methods to detect latent characteristics in ecosystems linked to temporal and spatial patterns of change. Resiliencebased approaches have been effective at not only identifying environmental change but also providing warning in advance of critical transitions in social-ecological systems (SES). In this study, we examine the usefulness of one such method, Fisher Information (FI) for spatiotemporal analysis. FI is used to assess patterns in data and has been established as an effective tool for capturing complex system dynamics to include regimes and regime shifts. We employed FI to assess the biophysical condition of eighty-five Swedish lakes from 1996–2018. Results showed that FI captured spatiotemporal changes in the Swedish lakes and identified distinct spatial patterns above and below the Limes Norrlandicus, a hard ecotone boundary which separates northern and southern ecoregions in Sweden. Further, it revealed that spatial variance changed approaching this boundary. Our results demonstrate the utility of this resilience-based approach for spatiotemporal and spatial regimes analyses linked to monitoring and managing critical watersheds and waterbodies impacted by accelerating environmental change

Responses of multiple structural and functional indicators along three contrasting disturbance gradients

Ecosystem functioning and community structure are recognized as key components of ecosystem integrity, but comprehensive, standardized studies of the responses of both structural and functional indicators to different types of anthropogenic pressures remain rare. Consequently, we lack an empirical basis for (i) identifying when monitoring ecosystem structure alone misses important changes in ecosystem functioning, (ii) recommending sets of structural and functional metrics best suited for detecting ecological change driven by different anthropogenic pressures, and (iii) understanding the cumulative effects of multiple, co-occurring stressors on structure and function. We investigated variation in community structure and ecosystem functioning of stream ecosystems along three gradients (10-16 independent stream sites each) of increasing impact arising from agriculture, forestry and river regulation for hydropower, respectively. For each stream, we quantified variation in (i) the abiotic environment, (ii) community composition of four organism groups and (iii) three basal ecosystem processes underpinning carbon and nutrient cycling in streams. We assessed the responsiveness of multiple biodiversity, community structure and ecosystem functioning indicators based on variance explained and effect size metrics. Along a gradient of increasing agricultural impact, diatoms and fish were the most responsive groups overall, but significant variation was detected in at least one aspect of community composition, abundance and/ or biodiversity of every organism group . In contrast, most of our functional metrics did not vary significantly along the agricultural gradient, possibly due to contrasting, antagonistic effects of increasing nutrient concentrations and turbidity on ecosystem process rates. The exception was detritivore-mediated litter decomposition which increased up to moderate levels of nutrient. Impacts of river regulation were most marked for diatoms, which were responsive to both increasingly frequent hydropeaking and to increasing seasonal river regulation. Among functional indicators, both litter decomposition and algal biomass accrual declined significantly with increasing hydropeaking. Few structural or functional metrics varied with forest management, with macroinvertebrate diversity increasing along the forestry gradient, as did algal and fungal biomass accrual. Together, these findings highlight the challenges of making inferences about the impacts of anthropogenic disturbances at the ecosystem level based on community data alone, and pinpoint the need to identify optimal sets of functional and structural indicators best suited for detecting ecological changes associated with different human activities

Resilience of aquatic ecosystems

Sjöar och vattendrag är viktiga för den biologiska mångfalden i Sverige och bidrar också med viktiga ekosystemtjänster till oss människor. Det råder enighet i den vetenskapliga litteraturen att sötvatten är bland de mest sårbara ekosystemen på grund av klimatförändringarna, och svenska sötvatten är inte undantagna från dessa förändringar. Ytvatten kan vara utsatta för kombinerade effekter av till exempel biologiska invasioner, global uppvärmning och återhämtning från försurning. Tillsammans ger dessa effekter komplexa och ofta oväntade förändringar i den abiotiska och biotiska miljön. En grundläggande fråga uppstår: är våra sötvattenekosystem kapabla att anpassa sig till dessa förändringar? Oftast används hotade populationer för att studera hur känsligt ett ekosystem är för miljöförändringar. Även om populationsbaserad kunskap är värdefull, misslyckas denna metod med att korrekt beskriva den komplexa och flerdimensionella dynamiken som karakteriserar ett ekosystem. Följaktligen föreligger stor osäkerhet om hur sjöar och vattendrag kommer att anpassa sig till denna typ av komplexa förändringar i miljön. Det behövs information för att bedöma sårbarheten ur ett ekosystemperspektiv: Vilka är riskerna för ett oönskat regimskifte i akvatiska ekosystem? Vilka faktorer är viktiga för att sådana skiften ska kunna uppstå? Kan vi hantera dessa faktorer för att avvärja regimskiften och istället främja de typer av ekosystem som vi önskar? I denna rapport diskuteras ett ramverk för att ta itu med dessa frågor. Ramverket har sina rötter i resiliensteori. Takten i den vetenskapliga utvecklingen av resiliensteorin har kanske varit för snabb för att matcha användbarheten av teorin i praktiken. Nu är tiden mogen för att börja använda resiliensteorin i praktiska ekologiska frågeställningar. Rapporten gör detta genom att ge en översikt av de två tillgängliga metoder som används för att kvantifiera resiliens dvs. hur komplex ekosystemstrukturen och funktionen hos ett ecosystem är . Mycket av arbetet bygger på långtidsdata från nationella övervakningsprogram som ger unika möjligheter att bedöma resiliens med hög ekologisk realism. Tyvärr är en analys baserad på långtidsdata inte möjlig i många ekosystem. Därför presenteras också en metod som möjliggör en analys av ett ekosystems resiliens då man bara har tillgång till data från ett provtagningstillfälle. Metoder finns alltså som gör en bedömning av ekosystemens resiliens möjlig. Denna rapport beskriver därför framtida prioriteringar som kan bidrar till en effektiv användning av systemsårbarhetskonceptet inom ekologin och resursförvaltning

A comparative analysis reveals weak relationships between ecological factors and beta diversity of stream insect metacommunities at two spatial levels

The hypotheses that beta diversity should increase with decreasing latitude and increase with spatial extent of a region have rarely been tested based on a comparative analysis of multiple datasets, and no such study has focused on stream insects. We first assessed how well variability in beta diversity of stream insect metacommunities is predicted by insect group, latitude, spatial extent, altitudinal range, and dataset properties across multiple drainage basins throughout the world. Second, we assessed the relative roles of environmental and spatial factors in driving variation in assemblage composition within each drainage basin. Our analyses were based on a dataset of 95 stream insect metacommunities from 31 drainage basins distributed around the world. We used dissimilarity-based indices to quantify beta diversity for each metacommunity and, subsequently, regressed beta diversity on insect group, latitude, spatial extent, altitudinal range, and dataset properties (e.g., number of sites and percentage of presences). Within each metacommunity, we used a combination of spatial eigenfunction analyses and partial redundancy analysis to partition variation in assemblage structure into environmental, shared, spatial, and unexplained fractions. We found that dataset properties were more important predictors of beta diversity than ecological and geographical factors across multiple drainage basins. In the within-basin analyses, environmental and spatial variables were generally poor predictors of variation in assemblage composition. Our results revealed deviation from general biodiversity patterns because beta diversity did not show the expected decreasing trend with latitude. Our results also call for reconsideration of just how predictable stream assemblages are along ecological gradients, with implications for environmental assessment and conservation decisions. Our findings may also be applicable to other dynamic systems where predictability is low