SGER: Towards a New Functional Approach for Comparing Stream Ecosystems

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An emerging theoretical framework in stream ecology attempts to describe how physical disturbance regulates ecosystem structure and function at multiple spatial scales. A major goal of this emerging framework is to predict ecological attributes of lotic ecosystems based on knowledge of geomorphology and hydrology, which together can describe how stable or frequently disturbed benthic habitats are. The PI will characterize lotic invertebrate communities in functional terms (e.g., life history, mobility, size spectra, and morpho-behavioral attributes) that should represent integrated organism responses to physical disturbance. Using these non-taxonomic indices, The PI will test the hypothesis that community structure is quantitatively related to habitat stability and disturbance. Research will be conducted on 10 carefully- selected streams in the Eastern Deciduous Biome to isolate the mechanism (habitat disturbance) hypothesized to explain much variability in invertebrate community structure.