Thresholds of acidification impacts on macroinvertebrates adapted to seasonally acidified tropical streams: potential responses to extreme drought-driven pH declines.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Drought-driven acidification events of increasing frequency and severity are expected as a consequence of climate change, and these events may expose macroinvertebrate taxa to increased acidification beyond their tolerance levels. Recent work in lowland Costa Rica has shown that poorly-buffered tropical streams exhibit natural seasonal variation in pH, with extremely low levels (<4.5) after extreme dry seasons). Our goal was to determine the threshold of pH effects on survival of three tropical stream macroinvertebrate taxa.

Methods

We conducted laboratory mesocosm experiments to determine acidification effects (using diluted HCl) on three focal macroinvertebrate taxa collected from a poorly-buffered stream at La Selva Biological Station: (1) mayfly naiads (Epheme

SUBMITTER: Ganong C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8621781 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature