Impacts of the accumulated extinction of endangered species on stream food webs

Abstract

The world is facing a serious biodiversity-loss crisis and stream ecosystems are among the most vulnerable. Human-induced disturbances are accelerating the loss of stream biodiversity; however, their ecological impacts are poorly understood. Here, we comprehensively investigated the impact of biodiversity loss on stream food webs using massive food web data (> 1 300 webs). We analyzed the structural changes of food webs upon accumulation of biodiversity loss and specifically compared the severity of losses between fish or benthic macroinvertebrates. In particular, we focused on currently threatened and near-threatened species, to reflect realistic extinction. We simulated their sequential and accumulative extinctions and analyzed the changes in food web structural indices using a linear mixed effect model. Stream food webs tended to be robust against the loss of threatened species; however, the accumulated extinction, including both threatened and near-threatened species, caused substantial changes in food web structures. Notably, significant decreases in the number of links, link density, and generality were observed, indicating the vulnerability of the system. The loss of fish caused larger changes in the food web structure compared to that of benthic macroinvertebrates, indicating the relative importance of fish species in sustaining food web structures. Food web alteration may lead to substantial changes in ecosystem functioning. Our study suggests preemptive action to protect near-threatened species as well as threatened ones for conserving stream ecosystems and their services. Furthermore, we suggest that the food web framework is useful for diagnosing ecosystem-level impacts of species loss in biodiversity conservation.