Session: Long-term Dynamics
Keynote Lecture
Multivariate approaches to understanding community-level properties of resilience in long-term data
Keynote Speaker:
Prof. Stephanie Hampton
Changes in biotic communities over centuries and millennia can be analysed using temporal records of lake ecosystems (i.e. long-term monitoring data), classical paleolimnological methods and paleogenomics. These tools differ in the length of temporal coverage (from decades to millennia) and resolution (from seasonal to multiannual changes), as well as in species coverage and resolution (from whole community assessments to specific groups [e.g. diatoms, cladocerans]). These methods may offer different and complementary views of biotic change through the period of heightened anthropogenic pressure in the 20th century. They can additionally deliver baselines of ecosystem stability and resilience through analyses that extend beyond the 20th century and reach back multiple millennia. Analyses of long-term dynamics are therefore uniquely suited to empirically evaluate the response, resilience and reversibility of biota to environmental perturbations. We welcome contributions applying these methods to evaluate long-term dynamics, which aim at a mechanistic understanding of changes, and/or aim at disentangling the effects of direct anthropogenic impacts and climate change.
Session Organiser:
Laura Epp, University of Konstanz
David Schleheck, University of Konstanz
Dietmar Straile, University of Konstanz
Session: Responses to Changing Environments
Keynote lecture
Does evolution lead to higher resilience and reversibility?
Keynote Speaker:
Luc de Meester
Aquatic environments are subject to constantly changing conditions. Aquatic ecosystems can be strongly influenced by both abiotic factors, like temperature or inorganic nutrient availability, and biotic factors, such as predator/prey relations or invasive species.
This session will include examples addressing how aquatic ecosystems, and their biota, respond to changes at both the microscopic and macroscopic levels. Furthermore, the session will address the mechanisms that keep resilient systems at equilibrium, and how reversible communities and ecosystems respond to disturbances.
Session Organiser:
Peter Kroth, University of Konstanz
Dominik Martin-Creuzburg, University of Konstanz
Dieter Spiteller, University of Konstanz
Elizabeth Yohannes, University of Konstanz
Session: Invasive Species
Keynote lecture
Are Ponto-Caspian invaders of freshwater or marine origin?
Keynote Speaker:
Elizabeta Briski
In aquatic systems, biological invasions are one of the most important ecological disturbances that threaten native biodiversity and are a menace to ecosystem functioning and resilience.
This session will focus on invasive species in lake ecosystems. In particular, the session welcomes contributions dealing with the detection and tracking of alien species, the impact of invasive species on native biota and ecosystem processes, and evolutionary change in invasive species. Furthermore, we also welcome contributions with regard to prevention of new invasions and management of the invasive species that have already established.
Session Organiser:
Alexander Brinker, LAZBW
Mark van Kleunen, University of Konstanz
Axel Meyer, University of Konstanz
Karl-Otto Rothhaupt, University of Konstanz
Session: Resilience and Reversibility in Complex Systems
Keynote Speaker:
Prof. Christopher Klausmeier
Understanding the potential of complex systems for resilience (i.e. the ability of an ecosystem to resist disturbance or environmental change) and for reversibility (i.e. the recovery of an ecosystem following disturbance and its shift back to the original regime) represents a major challenge for science and society.
There is great interest in identifying the mechanisms and potential for systems to resist and recover from harmful environmental changes. Yet, there are many unanswered questions currently preventing us from applying concepts of resilience and reversibility to natural complex systems, such as lakes and their adjacent habitats.
Open questions include how findings from small systems scale-up to large systems, what level of biological organisation (functional groups, species, traits, alleles) needs to be considered, and how to measure resilience and reversibility.
We aim to bring together scientists to discuss and synthesise principles of resilience and reversibility, as well as recent work in complex systems investigating responses to rapidly changing environments.
Session Organiser:
Lutz Becks, University of Konstanz
Frank Peeters, University of Konstanz
Piet Spaak, Eawag