Spatial extent and impact of aquatic resources on terrestrial communities, individuals and trophic dynamics in tropical and temperate forests

For my PhD I aim to expand our understanding of how aquatic-terrestrial linkages impact terrestrial community and trophic structures, determine how far away from an aquatic source these impacts remain significant, investigate the generality of any observed patterns between distinct biomes and across latitude, and model the results for application by policymakers. Using nitrogen and carbon stable isotope analysis with Bayesian analyses I will track the flux of aquatic resources into terrestrial food webs and evaluate changes in the dietary breadth (and other isotopic metrics; Layman and Post, 2008) of consumers at the community and species level along 150m transects away from streams. I will measure community structure responses as changes in alpha and beta diversity, abundance and biomass between transect points, streams and sites. Through having a standardised method of sampling carried out in multiple sites in Brazil and Europe, I will be able to compare and contrast patterns between different climatic zones (tropical, temperate), forest types (Amazon, Atlantic rainforest, conifer plantation and broadleaf forest), and latitudes (Scotland to Atlantic Rainforest). Finally, I aim to use this extensive dataset of approx 700 sampled communities, from across two continents, to develop a spatial model incorporating trophic dynamics and environmental parameters. This model will aim to estimate how wide riparian buffer zones need to be to encompass full cross-ecosystem dynamics, depending on geographic location, forest type and species compositions. The large dataset will be formatted, uploaded to a server and made available for future hypotheses to be explored.