The cumulative impacts of anthropogenic stressors vary markedly along environmental gradients

Abstract

Understanding the cumulative effects of multiple stressors on biodiversity is key to managing their impacts. Stressor interactions are often studied using an additive/antagonistic/synergistic typology, aimed at identifying situations where individual stressor effects are reduced or amplified when they act in combination. Here, we analysed variation in the family richness of stream macroinvertebrates in the groups Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera (EPT) at 4658 sites spanning a 32° latitudinal range in eastern Australia in relation to two largely human‐induced stressors, salinity and turbidity, and two environmental gradients, temperature and slope. The cumulative and interactive effect of salinity and turbidity on EPT family richness varied across the landscape and by habitat (edge or riffle) such that we observed additive, antagonistic and synergistic outcomes depending on the environmental context. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the consistency of multiple stressor impacts, which will involve higher‐order interactions between multiple stressors and environmental factors.

Abstract

When stressors act together, their cumulative effects on biodiversity can be amplified or dampened if they interact with each other. Understanding where and how stressors interact is thus central to managing their impact. Here we show that both the interaction and combined effect of two stressors, salinity and turbidity, on freshwater biodiversity vary markedly across the landscape such that the cumulative impact of these two stressors requires knowledge of how stressor effects interact with landscape properties.