Homogenisation of ECosystem functioning between Temperate and Neotropical streams due to AgRicultural land usE (HECTARE)

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The expansion and intensification of agricultural areas and the associated deforestation, eutrophica-tion and modification of habitat heterogeneity remain the most important stressors to stream ecosys-tem functioning worldwide. The alteration of key environmental characteristics may cause the loss of functional attributes specific for streams in different climate zones and may ultimately lead to a ho-mogenisation of stream ecosystem functioning. Previous studies were mostly restricted to a single function in a particular biome and a thorough understanding on the potential for an agriculturally driven functional homogenisation of stream ecosystems among climate zones is lacking. The project HECTARE analyses ecosystem functioning of pristine and agricultural streams situated in the German Harz and in the Brazilian Cerrado and Atlantic forest. By the novel combination of quantification of food webs and measurements of ecosystem productivity and respiration, HECTARE delivers a mech-anistic understanding on energy- and matter fluxes in temperate and Neotropical streams including their trophic coupling to the catchments. Building on that, key pathways of whole-ecosystem matter and energy fluxes that are impacted by agricultural land use will be identified. The inter-biome ap-proach proposed with HECTARE will allow for a synthesis of impact patterns associated with agricul-tural land use and an analysis of the degree of functional homogenisation of stream ecosystems.