Abstract
Water bodies can mitigate urban heat island effects and allow terrestrial animals to access water during periods of insufficient precipitation. Because precipitation is expected to become increasingly scarce in many global regions, urban riparian areas in drylands may yield important insight into the dynamic role of water in terrestrial animal communities. Here, we first investigated the role of spatiotemporal variability in water availability in insect biomass and biodiversity in an urban riparian area—particularly, whether seasonality modulates the spatial effects of water availability. High water availability was characterized spatially by proximity to a river, and temporally by high-precipitation seasons. Second, we investigated whether the relationship between biomass and biodiversity shifts due to variation in water availability. We determined the biomass and biodiversity of an insect community across a riparian zone in Stockton, CA, USA, an urban drylands area characterized by hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. Time (seasonality exhibiting dramatic variation in precipitation) exerted strong effects on ecological indices and a biodiversity-biomass relationship. Space (proximity to a fixed water source) had more modest effects on the community, and there was some evidence that space and time modulated the effects of one another on the community. Urban animal community dynamics may be more sensitive to larger-scale climate patterns than to local, landscape-level factors, and covariation between biomass and biodiversity may be influenced by resource (water) availability. Studying insect communities in the riparian zones of urban drylands may be critical to understanding how animal communities respond to a warmer, drier climate.
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Introduction
Temperatures are increasing worldwide, and urban ecosystems are warming faster than other ecosystems due to the urban heat island effect (Wilby 2008; IPCC 2021). Urban waterbodies (i.e., permanent sources of static or flowing water) can mitigate urban heat, and therefore serve as important cooling islands (Murakawa et al. 1991; Hathway and Sharples 2012; Sun et al. 2012; Xue et al. 2019). Urban waterbodies also support biodiversity and provide cultural ecosystems services (reviewed in Hassall 2014; Alikhani et al. 2021). Riparian areas, including those in urban drylands, are particularly important for preserving biodiversity (Naiman and Décamps 1997; Trammell et al. 2011; McCluney and Sabo 2014; Banville et al. 2017; García-Martínez et al. 2017; Ramey and Richardson 2017). In the absence of sufficient precipitation, urban rivers allow terrestrial organisms to access water, a vital resource that is becoming increasingly scarce in many regions due to climate change (Trenberth 2011; Sarhadi et al. 2018; Giorgi et al. 2019; IPCC 2021). Thus, proximity to a river can represent a gradient of resource availability for organisms. Although access to a water source offers advantages (Chamaillé-Jammes et al. 2007; Chen et al. 2015), such high-resource environments may have drawbacks, including increased competition (Kotowski et al. 2006; Pafilis et al. 2009; Laliberté et al. 2013) or predation risk (reviewed in Yuen and Dudgeon 2015).
Precipitation is a strong selective force on terrestrial plants and animals worldwide (Siepielski et al. 2017). It may also modulate the costs and benefits of permanent water sources to organisms whereby the relative value of a permanent water source is reduced by precipitation. Precipitation often varies seasonally, and seasonal climate patterns of precipitation and temperature can synergistically interact to modify the role of permanent water sources to organisms. For example, Mediterranean climates are found across several continents, and they exhibit an inverse relationship between temperature and precipitation (i.e., dry summers and wet winters: Kottek et al. 2006; Stahle et al. 2020). Here, close proximity to a river or pond may have a greater effect on community dynamics during a hot, dry summer than during a cool, wet winter. Yet, the interactive effects of water’s spatial and temporal availability (i.e., proximity to a permanent water source and seasonal precipitation patterns, respectively) on animal communities are not fully understood (but see Yuen and Dudgeon 2015; McCluney et al. 2018).
The biomass and biodiversity of communities are key ecological indicators, and they are related to one another in many communities. For example, the relationship between plant biomass and biodiversity may be positive (reviewed in Wu et al. 2012; 2014), particularly in urban areas, may provide important insight into how insect communities (and the ecosystems they service) respond to the world’s future climate.
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We appreciate Louis Kim, Christine Le, and Jacob Whitlock for assisting with fieldwork.
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Open access funding provided by SCELC, Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium. The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.
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AB and ZRS conceived the ideas and designed methodology; all authors collected the data; ZRS analyzed the data; AB and ZRS led the writing of the manuscript; and all authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.
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Bonfoey, A., Padda, S.S. & Stahlschmidt, Z. Spatiotemporal variation in water availability drives insect community dynamics in an urban riparian zone. Urban Ecosyst 26, 1309–1317 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-023-01375-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-023-01375-3