Midwest Fish & Wildlife Conference 2019

AUTHORS: S. Mažeika P. Sullivan, The Ohio State University

ABSTRACT: Streams and their adjacent riparian zones are increasingly recognized as structurally and functionally linked through exchanges of energy, organic matter, and organisms. In particular, recent advances in our understanding of stream-riparian ecosystems have underscored the importance of aquatic-to-terrestrial prey in providing critical energetic subsidies to terrestrial riparian consumers, ranging from arthropods, to birds, to mammals. Contaminants can also move from aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems through these same food-web pathways. Here, I overview a decade of research in the Scioto River basin of Ohio that documents variability in aquatic-to-terrestrial nutritional subsidies and contaminants to terrestrial consumers across a gradient of urban-to-natural landscapes, and in small streams to larger rivers. Using aerial insectivorous birds – which are experiencing serious populations declines across the guild – as a case study, I provide a detailed example of how this research is being used to bridge aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in specific conservation and management contexts.