Grants for JAIL members to assist at the next AIL meeting

Dear friends,

As JAIL member, you should know that the Iberian Association of Limnology (AIL) offers 10 grants to assist and make a scientific contribution to the next AIL meeting that will take place in Coimbra, 24-29 June 2018.

Check out the information and deadlines to apply here.

2nd Collaborative European Freshwater Science Project for Young Researchers

Dear friends,

The European Federation of Freshwater Sciences (EFFS) recently announced the 2nd call for collaborative project among early-career researchers across Europe. The Iberian Association of Limnology (AIL) is an active partner of this association and played a key role in funding the current project, as well as the first call and the two JAIL projects (DOMIPEX and AGRHYDOM).

We encourage members of our youngish association to participate, or better, to lead a succesful research proposal to resolve a critical question in the European limnology. Click here to download the call.

Adaptation to desiccation and salinity tolerance: what was first, the chicken or the egg?

The new post of Young Limnologists deal with the evolution of aquatic life in extreme environments: salinity and desiccation

Version in Spanish and Portuguese

One of the most fascinating features of life on earth is its capacity to colonize even the most remote or unfavorable spots all over the planet. Evolutionary ecology is the scientific discipline that aims to understand the mechanisms by which organisms tolerate extreme conditions and are able to colonize harsh environments such as deserts, high mountains or highly saline waters.

Saline streams and ponds are a curious example of adaption to extreme stress conditions. To understand how these environments were colonized, we need to travel back in time when life began, in a seawater medium (roughly 35 grams of salts per liter). However, the first colonizers of inland waters had to deal with a salt-poor medium (freshwaters). They therefore developed adaptations for the active intake of salts, because ions, such as sodium, potassium or calcium, are essential for vital functions.

By vagaries of nature, oscillations of sea level left vestiges of ancient seas in many parts of the planet, which currently form rivers, ponds or lagoons of extreme salinity (up to 200 grams per liter). Thus, organisms previously adapted for retaining salts had to manage to get rid of them when colonizing these systems. However, the evolutionary origin of salt-regulation mechanisms still remains unknown for some groups of aquatic insects, such as water beetles. It has been suggested -but never tested, so far- that these mechanisms could have derived from previous adaptations to deal with desiccation, developed by their terrestrial ancestors.

Fig.1 Rambla Salada stream at Fortuna. Picture: Josefa Velasco.

In addition to saline stress, water beetles in saline temporary environments are exposed to periodical droughts during which most species migrate to wet refugia. Beetles and other aquatic insects are exposed to desiccation when they disperse to more appropriate spots, generally by flying, with the associated cellular damage and risk of dehydration, eventually causing death. Salinity and desiccation have similar physiological effects (both stressors cause water loss and an increase of salt concentration in internal fluids) and consequently, trigger similar mechanisms. Therefore, desiccation resistance mechanisms could have facilitated tolerance to salinity, or vice versa, but it is unknown which adaptation occurred first: "the chicken or the egg?".

That was the question that the authors of this recent study tried to address; they explored the evolutionary links between desiccation resistance, salt-regulation capacity and habitat transitions from fresh to saline waters in a group of water beetles (genus Enochrus, family Hydrophilidae).

Fig. 2. Beetle species belonging to the Enochrus group, with phylogenetic tree

Through laboratory experiments, the authors found that the most saline-tolerant species were also highly resistant to desiccation. Furthermore, they also observed that most of the studied freshwater species had a high resistance to desiccation and, surprisingly, they were able to tolerate salinity levels much higher than those occurring at the waters commonly inhabit by them. By combining these experimental data with the phylogeny (dendrogram representing the evolutionary relationships of these species) of this water beetle group, the evolutionary history of these adaptions was reconstructed.

  

Their results suggest that the most recent common ancestor of these species had a relatively high desiccation resistance, which provided the physiological basis for the enhancement of salt-regulation capacity, enabling them to colonize salt waters. Enochrus beetles thus established in habitats with different salinities and diversified yielding different species. The evolutionary rate of salt-regulation capacity was accelerated during geological periods of global aridification, associated to a decrease in precipitation and temperature. Transitions from fresh to saline waters also matched these arid periods, which provides another clue on the close relationship between tolerance to salinity and desiccation.

This study contributes to understanding how aquatic organisms deal with desiccation and salinity stress, something very important given the ongoing and future increasing aridification associated to global change in Mediterranean areas, in which the temporality and salinity of inland waters is expected to increase.

Pallarés, S.; Arribas, P.; Bilton, D.T.; Millán, A.; Velasco, J. & Ribera, I. (2017). The chicken or the egg? Adaptation to desiccation and salinity tolerance in a lineage of water beetles. Molecular Ecology. doi: 10.1111/mec.14334

Biological invasions modify the coexistence of native species in aquatic ecosystems

Young limnologists link functional ecology and invasive species habitat niches to predict biodiversity losses

Version in Spanish and Portuguese

Biological invasions are one of the most important causes of biodiversity loss and ecosystem change worldwide, which are especially damaging in aquatic habitats. However, it is still unclear how biological invasions may interact with local abiotic stressors (e.g., salinity, land-use intensification), which are expected to increase as global change intensifies. Furthermore, we know little about the response of native communities of insects to biological invasions, despite the huge contribution of insects to global animal biodiversity, especially in freshwater ecosystems.

So far, the study of the invasiveness of alien species has been focused mainly on isolated biological characteristics (e.g. body size, trophic strategy) and the specific ecosystem impacts induced by alien species. Yet it remains unclear how the ecological and biological similarity between native and alien species may influence the success and the impact of biological invasions, especially in the presence of intense environmental stressors.

In a new study recently published in Functional Ecology, we investigated the impact of an invasive water boatman (Trichocorixa verticalis verticalis) on the co-existence patterns of three native boatman Sigara species (Sigara lateralis, Sigara scripta and Sigara selecta) along a salinity gradient. Trichocorixa verticalis verticalis, originally distributed in North America and the Caribbean, has been recorded as an alien species in South Africa, New Caledonia, Morocco, Spain and Portugal, being the only water bug recognised as an alien species in Europe.

Fig. 1. The alien species Trichocorixa verticalis verticalis

In our study, we characterised the habitat specialisation and functional niches of each species from physiological and biological characteristics, respectively, and their degree of overlap. The physiological characteristic studied was the salinity tolerance of the different life stages (eggs, nymphs and adults) of each species. On the other hand, the biological characteristics selected were fecundity, dispersal ability, feeding strategy, life cycle and size.

Fig 2. One of the surveyed wetlands at the Doñana National Park (Spain)

After characterising the habitat specialisation and functional niches, we used field data (salinity and species presence) to compare the coexistence patterns of native and invasive species in invaded (south-western Iberia and northern Morocco) and non-invaded (south-eastern Iberia) areas.

Finally, we tested if habitat filtering (stress gradient segregates species into different habitats allowing regional coexistence) or niche differentiation (different resource exploitation allows the coexistence of species) assembly rules mediate their coexistence. To carry this out, we tested the actual co-occurrence values against the patterns found in simulated matrices created under null model scenarios of habitat filtering and niche differentiation.

Fig. 3. The three native boatman species. A) Sigara lateralis, B) Sigara scripta, C) Sigara selecta

Our results showed that the presence of the invasive insect modifies the distribution and coexistence patterns of native boatmen. We found that in non-invaded areas habitat filtering drives habitat segregation of the native species along the salinity gradient, with a lower contribution of niche differentiation. On the other hand, in invaded areas niche differentiation seems to be the main mechanism preventing competition among the invasive and native species, enabling coexistence and resource partitioning along the salinity gradient.

The present work makes a novel contribution to the study of the impacts of invasive species at the community level by integrating habitat specialisation and functional niche approaches with field occurrence data. We showed how the presence of the invasive species T. v. verticalis can modify the distribution and co-occurrence patterns of native Sigara species along the salinity gradient, as well as the main assembly rules that shape the assemblages in non-invaded and invaded areas. Our approach can also be useful to anticipate the consequences of ecologically novel invaders for native communities at structural and functional levels under a global change context.

Fig. 4. José Antonio Carbonell collecting macroinvertebrate samples

Carbonell, J. A., Velasco, J., Millán, A., Green, A. J., Coccia, C., Guareschi, S., & Gutiérrez-Cánovas, C. (2017). Biological invasion modifies the co-occurrence patterns of insects along a stress gradient. Functional Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.12884.