Feedbacks Between Climate and Freshwater Ecosystem Engineers

ABSTRACT Biodiversity, species interactions, and ecosystem processes are being altered by changing climatic conditions, including temperature and precipitation. These changes affect ecosystem engineers, which are foundation species that create or modify habitat and resource environments. We identify interactions between ecosystem engineering and conditions related to climate and climate change in freshwater ecosystems, which are severely threatened by anthropogenic activity. Climate conditions affect freshwater ecosystem engineer presence, distribution, density, and engineering activities, including composition of materials, extent, and frequency of structures (e.g., beaver dams). Engineering activities may buffer or amplify climate conditions and create opportunities for feedbacks, such as when animal burrows mediate drought by maintaining moisture, thereby heightening the ecological significance of the ecosystem engineering activity under climate change. We quantified studies on these topics through time and space by recording the climate conditions and ecosystem engineering taxa considered. Our findings reveal that research at the intersection of ecosystem engineers and climate in freshwater lags behind that in terrestrial ecosystems. Freshwater research also focuses 3× more on hydrologic conditions, such as flooding, than on temperature. Studies to date come from a narrow range of projected warmer and wetter climate change regimes and heavily favor localities in the contiguous USA and Europe. Knowledge gaps to address with future research include understudied groups such as insects and crustaceans, diverse engineering assemblages, multiple stressors, and disease. A better understanding of the role of ecosystem engineers experiencing climate change will help forecast how feedbacks between climate and ecosystem engineering will play out in the future. This article is categorized under: Water and Life > Nature of Freshwater Ecosystems Water and Life > Conservation, Management, and Awareness Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change