EESS talk on "Spatial processes shape biodiversity patterns in river networks"
Event details
| Date | 01.03.2022 |
| Hour | 12:15 › 13:15 |
| Speaker | Dr Luca Carraro, Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Aquatic Ecology, EAWAG |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
Abstract:
Freshwater environments are particularly rich in biodiversity, hosting about 10% of the known animal species, despite occupying only 2% of the global water surface. However, global change is posing serious threats to biodiversity, with effects on freshwater environments that are reportedly more severe than is the case for terrestrial or marine habitats. This calls for the development of adequate tools for freshwater biodiversity assessment at high spatiotemporal resolution, which must be based on an appropriate description of riverine landscapes, their connectivity structure, and the hydrological drivers that affect local abiotic conditions and dispersal processes. In this talk, I will present a suite of modelling approaches to study spatial ecohydrological processes in river networks, and specifically: i) The generation of virtual analogues of river networks (so-called Optimal Channel Networks) that share the same topological and scaling features of real rivers; ii) The relationship between riverine connectivity patterns and metrics defining stability and persistence of a metapopulation; iii) A meta-ecosystem perspective on the spatial distribution of riverine communities; iv) A hydrology-based model for transport of environmental DNA (eDNA, i.e., molecular traces of organisms sampled from stream water) that allows assessment of highly resolved riverine biodiversity patterns. All of these approaches are linked by a substantial unity of methodologies, which ultimately shows the crucial role exerted by hydrological processes in shaping ecological communities in river networks.
Short biography:
After a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Civil and Hydraulic Engineering at the University of Padua (Italy), Luca Carraro obtained a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at EPFL in 2018. There, he worked at the interface of hydrology, ecology and epidemiology, especially focusing on the epidemiological modelling of a disease (proliferative kidney disease) lethal to salmonid fish. Subsequently, he moved to Eawag (Dübendorf, Switzerland) for a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Aquatic Ecology (jointly funded by the University of Zurich), where he has been mostly focusing on the development of environmental DNA transport models in rivers. As of July 2022, he will start an SNF Ambizione fellowship at the University of Zurich, where he will expand his research coupling hydrological and ecological models to enhance the assessment of riverine biodiversity patterns.
Freshwater environments are particularly rich in biodiversity, hosting about 10% of the known animal species, despite occupying only 2% of the global water surface. However, global change is posing serious threats to biodiversity, with effects on freshwater environments that are reportedly more severe than is the case for terrestrial or marine habitats. This calls for the development of adequate tools for freshwater biodiversity assessment at high spatiotemporal resolution, which must be based on an appropriate description of riverine landscapes, their connectivity structure, and the hydrological drivers that affect local abiotic conditions and dispersal processes. In this talk, I will present a suite of modelling approaches to study spatial ecohydrological processes in river networks, and specifically: i) The generation of virtual analogues of river networks (so-called Optimal Channel Networks) that share the same topological and scaling features of real rivers; ii) The relationship between riverine connectivity patterns and metrics defining stability and persistence of a metapopulation; iii) A meta-ecosystem perspective on the spatial distribution of riverine communities; iv) A hydrology-based model for transport of environmental DNA (eDNA, i.e., molecular traces of organisms sampled from stream water) that allows assessment of highly resolved riverine biodiversity patterns. All of these approaches are linked by a substantial unity of methodologies, which ultimately shows the crucial role exerted by hydrological processes in shaping ecological communities in river networks.
Short biography:
After a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Civil and Hydraulic Engineering at the University of Padua (Italy), Luca Carraro obtained a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at EPFL in 2018. There, he worked at the interface of hydrology, ecology and epidemiology, especially focusing on the epidemiological modelling of a disease (proliferative kidney disease) lethal to salmonid fish. Subsequently, he moved to Eawag (Dübendorf, Switzerland) for a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Aquatic Ecology (jointly funded by the University of Zurich), where he has been mostly focusing on the development of environmental DNA transport models in rivers. As of July 2022, he will start an SNF Ambizione fellowship at the University of Zurich, where he will expand his research coupling hydrological and ecological models to enhance the assessment of riverine biodiversity patterns.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
- This event is internal
Organizer
- EESS - IIE
Contact
- Prof. Andrea Rinaldo, ECHO