Publications by authors named "Jesus E Gomez"
Food webs are complex ecological networks that reveal species interactions and energy flow in ecosystems. Prevailing ecological knowledge on forested streams suggests that their food webs are based on allochthonous carbon, driven by a constant supply of organic matter from adjacent vegetation and limited primary production due to low light conditions. Extreme climatic disturbances can disrupt these natural ecosystem dynamics by altering resource availability, which leads to changes in food web structure and functioning.
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- The study investigates how the diversity of detritivores (organisms that break down dead organic material) affects the decomposition of litter in streams across a global scale, involving 38 streams in 23 countries.
- Results show a positive correlation between detritivore diversity and litter decomposition, with this effect being particularly strong in tropical regions.
- The findings highlight the potential impact of detritivore extinctions on decomposition processes, especially in tropical areas where diversity is already low and environmental stressors are common.
Running waters contribute substantially to global carbon fluxes through decomposition of terrestrial plant litter by aquatic microorganisms and detritivores. Diversity of this litter may influence instream decomposition globally in ways that are not yet understood. We investigated latitudinal differences in decomposition of litter mixtures of low and high functional diversity in 40 streams on 6 continents and spanning 113° of latitude.
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