Oral Presentation Society for Freshwater Science 2026 Annual Meeting

Community responses to environmental variation in alpine pond ecosystems (134717)

Mia Ashby 1 , Kurt Anderson 1 , Samuel Yevak 2 , Mason Chow 1
  1. University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California, United States
  2. University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder

Alpine freshwater communities are especially vulnerable to climate change due to their extreme environment and specialized biota and are already experiencing measurable impacts (Lamouille-Hébert et al., 2025). Alpine ponds are even more vulnerable, yet remain understudied due to their remoteness and limited accessibility (Čiamporová-Zaťovičová & Čiampor, 2017; Fehlinger et al., 2026; Freitas et al., 2024). As a result, little is known about what drives community dynamics at present and how alpine ponds are predicted to respond to climate change (Wissinger et al., 2016). This study examined the environmental drivers influencing macroinvertebrate community composition in alpine ponds.We hypothesized that ponds sharing similar substrate types and water sources would exhibit similar community composition, and that altitude and temperature would exert distinct but comparable effects on community structure. Macroinvertebrate communities and environmental variables were sampled across 27 ponds in the Green Lakes Valley at the Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Boulder County, Colorado, during three summer seasons (2021, 2022, and 2024). Macroinvertebrates were identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible, most commonly genus.Community responses to environmental drivers were assessed using non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), redundancy analysis (RDA), and beta diversity metrics. Preliminary results indicate overall low to moderate macroinvertebrate diversity across ponds, with unexpectedly high diversity within the family Chironomidae.Community composition was generally similar within individual sampling years but varied in richness among years. Results have also shown a potential relationship between community composition of ponds with mixed and river water source and ponds dominated by groundwater and snowmelt sources. These results give some insight into alpine pond community dynamics, but warrant future studies in this sensitive, but poorly studied aquatic ecosystem.

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