DOI: 10.5061/dryad.xpnvx0knw
title: Drying and fragmentation drive the dynamics of resources, consumers and ecosystem functions across aquatic-terrestrial habitats in a river network

description: Rivers form meta-ecosystems, in which disturbance and connectivity control
 biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and their interactions – across the
 river network, but also across connected instream and riparian ecosystems.
 This aquatic-terrestrial linkage is modified by drying; a disturbance that
 also naturally fragments river networks and thereby modifies organism
 dispersal and organic matter (OM) transfers across the river network.
 However, little evidence of the effects of drying on river network-scale
 OM cycling exists. Here, we assessed the effects of fragmentation by
 drying at the river meta-ecosystem scale by monitoring, leaf resource
 stocks, invertebrate communities, and decomposition rates across three
 seasons and 20 sites, in the instream and riparian habitats of a river
 network naturally fragmented by drying. Although instream leaf resource
 quantity and quality increased, leaf-shredder invertebrate richness and
 abundance decreased with flow intermittence. Decomposition was however
 mainly driven by network-scale fragmentation and connectivity. Shredder
 richness and invertebrate-driven decomposition both peaked at sites with
 an intermediate amount of intermittent reaches upstream, suggesting that
 upstream drying can promote the biodiversity and functioning of downstream
 ecosystems. Shredder richness had however a negative effect on
 decomposition in perennial sites, likely due to interspecific competition.
 Leaf quantity, invertebrate communities, and invertebrate-driven
 decomposition became more similar between instream and riparian habitats
 as drying frequency increased, likely due to homogenization of
 environmental conditions between both habitats as the river dries. Our
 study demonstrates the paramount effects of drying on the dynamics of
 resources, communities, and ecosystem functioning in rivers and represents
 one of the first network-scale evidence of the co-drivers of ecosystem
 functions across terrestrial-aquatic boundaries.
description: # Drying and fragmentation drive the dynamics of resources, consumers and
 ecosystem functions across aquatic-terrestrial habitats in a river
 network. ## Description of
 the data and file structure The dataset contains four tables containing:
 1\) **Invertebrate_data.xlsx**: The taxa-by-sample invertebrate community
 data used to calculate richness, abundance and community composition, *
 This dataset contains the abundance of each taxa collected, sample
 identity are in rows and taxa names in columns. 1st row = lowest taxonomic
 level achieved, 2nd row = taxon order or class, 3rd row = taxon family,
 4th row = taxon subfamily, 5th row = taxon genera; row 6-125 correspond to
 taxa abundance within each sample (sorted by site identification number,
 habitat and sampling campaign). 2\) **Invertebrate_feeding_traits.xlsx**:
 The trait information used to calculate shredder richness and abundance *
 This dataset contains the fuzzy coded trait information with taxa names as
 rows and feeding traits as columns 3\) **Decomposition.xlsx**: The
 decomposition data, containing CK (column N) and FK (column O) * The sheet
 Column_ID in the dataset details data content 4\)
 **Environmental_variables.xlsx**: Environmental data, including instream
 and riparian leaf stocks, leaf litter quality (C%, N%, C/N), tree covers,
 substrate information, water chemistry information and all predictor
 variables such a distance to the source, flow permanence and % of upstream
 perennial reaches. * The sheet Column_ID in the dataset details data
 content NAs indicate missing data or data that could not be sampled when
 rivers were dry (e.g. dissolved oxygen) ## ##