Synthesizing patterns and drivers of changes in lake zooplankton community dynamics worldwide

Despite the critical services freshwater systems provide, freshwater biodiversity has been vastly under-studied compared to terrestrial and marine biomes. In fact, systematic compilations of freshwater zooplankton are surprisingly rare despite the critical roles zooplankton play in regulating and supporting ecosystem services, serving as key indicator species, and consequently, influencing emergent system properties such as water quality and food web structure. We have compiled and harmonized the most temporally and spatially extensive freshwater zooplankton dataset available to date, designed to seamlessly integrate with a suite of in-lake and remote sensing data and modeling products. Our international team will use this dataset to address four timely questions about freshwater zooplankton dynamics: (1) What metrics of zooplankton community composition can be used as indicators of environmental change across global regions and lake types? (2) How does zooplankton body size structure vary within and among species, and does such variation influence ecosystem function? (3) How do zooplankton dynamics respond to climate change and other stressors, and can we expect responses to exhibit geospatial trends beyond local and regional scales? (4) Do space-for-time substitutions from multi-lake “snapshot” surveys capture reproducible patterns in temporal zooplankton community dynamics and thus represent valid spatial proxies for biodiversity trends? We plan for continued use of our products beyond the end of the project by developing a user-friendly dataset, with parallel outputs such as a Shiny app interface to serve other researchers, educators, and managers. Together, we address fundamental questions related to freshwater biodiversity change worldwide while creating a flexible, reusable data product for continued exploration beyond the scope and duration of this project.