Overlooked bed shift? Modulation of the stream microbial food web and metabolism by patches of migrating sand ripples
Final Report Abstract
Sandy sediments of lowland streams are transported as bedforms, more specifically as migrating ripples that develop already at low flow. The benthic microbes and meiofauna colonizing the streambed are exposed to the highly frequent moving-resting cycles of sand grains in migrating ripples. This dynamic setting gives reason to believe that ripple migration can modulate microbial communities of all trophic guilds (bacteria, fungi, autotrophic and phagotrophic protists) and meiofauna with profound biogeochemical consequences. Overall, our findings foster earlier studies and highlight an impact of ripple migration on community resistance and resilience, both on the short-term and long-term. From our field survey, we found that migrating ripples create heterogeneity of ecological and biogeochemical processes by modulating the abundance, diversity, and structure of all trophic guilds of microbial and meiofaunal communities and their resource acquisition. Further, ripple migration enhanced vertical mixing of meiofauna, but not of microbial communities. By modifying the distribution of benthic resources and of consumers, ripple migration likely affects energy flow paths through benthic food webs. In a next step, we used field data on ripple dimension and migration velocity to model moving-resting frequencies of single sand grains. A probabilistic approach revealed similar resting duration of all grains in a ripple. The resting duration averages served as the basis for the micro-environmental settings in microcosm experiments. These experiments revealed that the dominant environmental factor acting during ripple migration was not mechanical forces, but light oscillation resulting in an increased vulnerability of light-dependent autotrophs and a shift towards heterotrophy. Similarly, a field experiment showed that heterotrophs were able to recover from ripple migration within seven days, whereas autotrophs were repressed for more than five months. Thus, autotrophs were particularly sensitive to ripple migration, indicating trophic guild-specific effects. Including effects from other transitional states common in sandy lowland streams, we showed that the effect of ripple migration on heterotrophs was moderate and the recovery fast compared to the more severe stress evoked by episodic drying. Further, sediment migration hampered microbial colonization of incoming soil from bank erosion. Finally, we observed that when migrating sediments are transferred to stationary conditions, metabolism remains comparable to previous rates and vice versa, indicating that the sediment transport history and the developmental stage of the microbial community are important predictors of the community response to sediment migration. Taking into account the high proportion of bed coverage of migrating ripples (34%-64%), this low-flow sediment transport shapes local and regional biodiversity, meta-community dynamics, and the flow of matter through the benthic food web.
Publications
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Functional and structural recovery of stream biofilms at the habitat scale is based on the individual disturbance history. Talk. DGL Münster
Oprei A.; Schreckinger J.; Kholiavko T.; Frossard A.; Mutz M. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Is the epipsammic community modulated by trajectory of historic or current sediment shifting? Poster. DGL Münster.
Wonner T.; Oprei A.; Mutz M. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Short-and long-term functional recovery of benthic microbial communities from drought. Talk. General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union Vienna, Austria
Oprei A.; Schreckinger J.; Kholiavko T.; Mutz M. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Variability of functional stream biofilm recovery at the habitat scale after disturbances from drying and sediment transport. Talk. SEFS Zagreb, Croatia
Oprei A.; Schreckinger J.; Kholiavko T.; Mutz M. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Dancing with the sediment - The response of meiobenthos to migrating ripples of sandy lowland streams. Talk. DGL Leipzig
Kryvokhyzhyna M.; Majdi N.; Oprei A.; Mutz M. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Dynamic streambed patches - Ecological and biogeochemical consequences of fine sediment migration. Talk. SEFS virtual.
Risse-Buhl U.; Arnon S.; Bar-Zeev E.; Oprei A.; Packman A.I.; Peralta-Maraver I.; Robertson A.; Teitelbaum Y. & Mutz M.
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Light or mechanics: What drives phototrophic and heterotrophic microbial activity in sandy sediments? Talk. DGL Leipzig
Schreckinger J.; Mutz M.; Franzmann I. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Migrating streambeds - Ecological and biogeochemical consequences of fine sediment migration. Talk. DGL Leipzig
Risse-Buhl U.; Arnon S.; Bar-Zeev E.; Oprei A.; Packman A.I.; Peralta-Maraver I.; Robertson A.; Teitelbaum Y. & Mutz M.
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Mixed in - Sediment migration modulates the structural and functional colonisation of freshly incoming soil from bank erosion. Talk. DGL Leipzig.
Franzmann I.; Schreckinger J.; Oprei A.; Mutz M. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Overlooked Implication of Sediment Transport at Low Flow: Migrating Ripples Modulate Streambed Phototrophic and Heterotrophic Microbial Activity. Water Resources Research, 57(3).
Scheidweiler, David; Mendoza‐Lera, Clara; Mutz, Michael & Risse‐Buhl, Ute
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Rolling over: Bedform migration modulates activity of river and incoming bank sediments. Talk. SEFS virtual
Franzmann, I.; Schreckinger J.; Oprei A.; Mutz M. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Streambeds in motion - Impact of sediment migration on the ecology and biogeochemistry of benthic and hyporheic communities. Talk. Annual meeting of the Society of Freshwater Sciences, virtual
Risse-Buhl U.; Arnon S.; Bar-Zeev E.; Oprei A.; Packman A.I.; Peralta-Maraver I.; Robertson A.; Teitelbaum Y. & Mutz M.
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Constraining effect of moving river bedforms on sediment microbial community is not influenced by variability in ripple migration velocity. Talk. Congress of the International Society of Limnology (SIL), virtual
Oprei, A.; Franzmann I.; Lee H.; Schreckinger J.; Mutz M. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Disconnected effects of light reduction and mechanics to the microbial community structure and activity in migrating ripples. Talk. SIL Berlin
Schreckinger J.; Mutz M.; Franzmann I. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Life in a tumbling world - Microbial community structure and function in migrating streambeds. Talk. DGL Konstanz
Risse-Buhl U.; Oprei A.; Schreckinger J. & Mutz M.
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Response of meiobenthos to migrating ripples in sandy lowland streams. Hydrobiologia, 849(8), 1905-1921.
Kryvokhyzhyna, Mariia; Majdi, Nabil; Oprei, Anna; Mutz, Michael & Risse-Buhl, Ute
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Variable ripple migration velocity shapes heterotrophic community structure but does not influence community metabolism. Talk. Meeting of the German Society of Limnology (DGL) Konstanz.
Oprei, A.; Franzmann I.; Lee H.; Schreckinger J.; Mutz M. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Coupling a probabilistic approach of sediment transport in migrating bedforms with biological processes of associated microbial communities. Talk. Symposium for European Freshwater Sciences (SEFS) Newcastle, UK
Oprei A.; Hornschild A.; Schreckinger J.; Mutz M. & Risse-Buhl U.
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Long-term functional recovery and associated microbial community structure after sediment drying and bedform migration. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11.
Oprei, Anna; Schreckinger, José; Kholiavko, Tatiana; Frossard, Aline; Mutz, Michael & Risse-Buhl, Ute
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Streambed migration frequency drives ecology and biogeochemistry across spatial scales. WIREs Water, 10(3).
Risse‐Buhl, Ute; Arnon, Shai; Bar‐Zeev, Edo; Oprei, Anna; Packman, Aaron I.; Peralta‐Maraver, Ignacio; Robertson, Anne; Teitelbaum, Yoni & Mutz, Michael
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Light over mechanics: microbial community structure and activity in simulated migrating bedforms are controlled by oscillating light rather than by mechanical forces. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 100(6).
Oprei, Anna; Schreckinger, José; Franzmann, Insa; Lee, Hayoung; Mutz, Michael & Risse-Buhl, Ute
