Environmental context and magnitude of disturbance influence trait-mediated community responses to wastewater in streams.

ABSTRACT: Human land uses and population growth represent major global threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services. Understanding how biological communities respond to multiple drivers of human-induced environmental change is fundamental for conserving ecosystems and remediating degraded habitats. Here, we used a replicated 'real-world experiment' to study the responses of invertebrate communities to wastewater perturbations across a land-use intensity gradient in 12 Swiss streams. We used different taxonomy and trait-based community descriptors to establish the most sensitive indicators detecting impacts and to help elucidate potential causal mechanisms of change. First, we predicted that streams in catchments adversely impacted by human land-uses would be less impaired by wastewater inputs beca

SUBMITTER: Burdon FJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4972221 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature