Stochastic processes and ecological connectivity drive stream invertebrate community responses to short-term drought

1. Community responses to and recovery from disturbances depend on local (e.g. presence of refuges) and regional (connectivity to recolonization sources) factors. Droughts are becoming more frequent in boreal regions, and are likely to constitute a severe disturbance for boreal stream communities where organisms largely lack adaptations to such hydrological extremes.
2. We conducted an experiment in 24 seminatural stream flumes to assess the effects of local and regional factors on the responses of benthic invertebrate communities to a short-term drought. We manipulated flow (drought vs. constant-flow), spatial arrangement of leaf litter patches (aggregated vs. evenly distributed) and colonization from regional species pool (enhanced vs. ambient connectivity) to test the combined effects of disturbance, connectivity, and resource arrangement on the structural and functional responses of benthic invertebrate communities.
3. We found that a drought as short as one week reduced invertebrat...