Multiple Stressors Simplify Freshwater Food Webs

Globally, freshwater ecosystems are threatened by multiple stressors, yet our knowledge of how they interact to affect food web structure remains scant. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a large-scale mesocosm experiment to quantify the single and combined effects of three common anthropogenic stressors: warming, increased nutrient loading, and insecticide pollution, on the network structure of shallow lake food webs. We identified both antagonistic and synergistic interactive effects depending on whether the stressors affected negative or positive feedback loops, respectively. Overall, multiple stressors simplified the food web, elongated energy transfer pathways, and shifted biomass distribution from benthic to more pelagic pathways. This increased the risk of a regime shift from a clear-water state dominated by submerged macrophytes to a turbid state dominated by phytoplankton. Our novel results highlight how multiple anthropogenic stressors can interactively disrupt food webs, with implications for understanding and managing aquatic ecosystems in a changing world.

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Publication Details

Journal
Global Change Biology
Published
2025-03-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.70114
Citations
13
Primary Topic
Biocrusts and Microbial Ecology
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
39.35

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article

Multiple Stressors Simplify Freshwater Food Webs

Michelle C. Jackson, Jun Xu, Guy Woodward, Eoin J. O’Gorman et al.
13 citations
Global Change Biology
Biocrusts and Microbial Ecology
39.35
article

Multiple Stressors Simplify Freshwater Food Webs

Michelle C. Jackson, Jun Xu, Guy Woodward, Eoin J. O’Gorman, Lars‐Anders Hansson, Sabine Hilt, Thijs Frenken, Tao Wang, Huan Wang, Huan Zhang, Min Zhang, Peiyu Zhang, Shaopeng Wang, Libin Zhou
article en
13 citations

Abstract

Globally, freshwater ecosystems are threatened by multiple stressors, yet our knowledge of how they interact to affect food web structure remains scant. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a large-scale mesocosm experiment to quantify the single and combined effects of three common anthropogenic stressors: warming, increased nutrient loading, and insecticide pollution, on the network structure of shallow lake food webs. We identified both antagonistic and synergistic interactive effects depending on whether the stressors affected negative or positive feedback loops, respectively. Overall, multiple stressors simplified the food web, elongated energy transfer pathways, and shifted biomass distribution from benthic to more pelagic pathways. This increased the risk of a regime shift from a clear-water state dominated by submerged macrophytes to a turbid state dominated by phytoplankton. Our novel results highlight how multiple anthropogenic stressors can interactively disrupt food webs, with implications for understanding and managing aquatic ecosystems in a changing world.

Global Change BiologyVol. 31(3)
University of Essex (GB), Lund University (SE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), Peking University (CN), Huazhong Agricultural University (CN), University of Oxford (GB), Institute of Hydrobiology (CN), Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (DE), Imperial College London (GB)
Sight Research UK, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Natural Environment Research Council
Openalex Percentile: Top 0%
Biocrusts and Microbial Ecology
39.35
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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