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Sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus L.) nests do not affect stream functionality despite increasing physical heterogeneity

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Abstract

The sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus L.) can be considered an ecosystem engineer, as it can substantially modify the river beds where it spawns. Sea lampreys dig nests by removing large volumes of cobbles to create a pit, and leaving them in a mound downstream, thus altering local bed morphology. Previous studies showed that sea lamprey nest-building behaviour increases riverbed heterogeneity in depth and water velocity, which in turn promotes macroinvertebrate diversity. Based on that finding, our study aimed at assessing whether these changes promoted ecosystem functioning. We measured multiple ecosystem functions (biofilm accretion, phosphate and ammonium uptake, and litter breakdown) on the pit and the mound of 30 lamprey nests, as well as on 30 unmodified sites. In spite of the physical heterogeneity, all processes measured showed no differences among sites, pointing towards a complex relationship between physical heterogeneity, biodiversity, and ecosystem function.

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Data availability

The datasets and the code generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the INRAE repository following this link: https://doi.org/10.57745/MKRJ52.

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Funding

Functioning was financed by Pôle Gestion des Migrateurs Amphihalins dans leur Environnement. M.D. PhDs was financed by Univ. Pau and Pays Adour and UPV/EHU. Field work used resources from the IE ECP Experimental Facility of the UMR Ecobiop (ECP 2018) and from the UPV/EHU Stream Ecology laboratory. Grant no. IT1471-22 from the Basque Government funded this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, E2S UPPA, INRAE, ECOBIOP, Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle, France

    Marius Dhamelincourt, Jacques Rives & Cédric Tentelier

  2. Pôle Gestion des Migrateurs Amphihalins dans leur Environnement, OFB, INRAE, Agrocampus Ouest, Univ Pau & Pays Adour/ E2S UPPA, Pau, France

    Marius Dhamelincourt, Jacques Rives & Cédric Tentelier

  3. Department of Plant Biology and Ecology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain

    Miren Atristain & Arturo Elosegi

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  1. Marius Dhamelincourt
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  2. Jacques Rives
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  3. Miren Atristain
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  4. Cédric Tentelier
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  5. Arturo Elosegi
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Arturo Elosegi, Jacques Rives, Cédric Tentelier, and Marius Dhamelincourt. Laboratory analysis was realized by Miren Atristain and Marius Dhamelincourt. Statistical analysis was performed by Arturo Elosegi and Marius Dhamelincourt. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Marius Dhamelincourt and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Marius Dhamelincourt.

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Dhamelincourt, M., Rives, J., Atristain, M. et al. Sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus L.) nests do not affect stream functionality despite increasing physical heterogeneity. Aquat Sci 85, 49 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-023-00946-y

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