Food-webs across aquatic-terrestrial environments in forests in the face of climate change
Martin Gossner
Carsten Schubert (Eawag)
Maja Ilic, Bastiaan Drost, Marco Moretti, Marco Lehmann, Matthias Saurer, Catherine Graham, Loïc Pellissier, Florian Altermatt (Eawag), Jakob Brodersen (Eawag), Blake Matthews (Eawag), Anita Narwani (Eawag), Ole Seehausen (Eawag), Christoph Vorburger (Eawag), Andreas Bruder (SUPSI)
This project contributes to the Blue-Green Biodiversity Research Initiative – an Eawag-WSL collaboration focusing on Biodiversity at the interface of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
Ecological theory suggests that the structure of food webs is crucial for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in complex landscapes. Global change likely impacts multi-trophic interactions and food webs across aquatic and terrestrial ecotones in forest ecosystems. However, it is unclear whether food webs in pure aquatic, pure terrestrial and interconnected habitats respond consistently to global change drivers and how this translates into changes in ecosystem functioning. We will use compound specific stable isotope analyses and isotope labelling to track changes in multitrophic interactions in forests in response to changes in macroclimatic (temperature) and microclimatic (different shading) conditions and forest management.