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Disturbance increases negative spatial autocorrelation in species diversity

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Abstract

Context

Ecological processes that shape diversity and spatial pattern of ecological communities are often altered by disturbance. Spatial patterns (spatial autocorrelation) in species diversity are thus expected to change with disturbance.

Objective

When examining spatial patterns, ecologists traditionally lump positive and negative spatial autocorrelation into the overall spatial autocorrelation. By contrast, here we aim to understand disturbance effects on both positive and negative spatial autocorrelation of species richness and evenness, which may be related to environmental filtering and restricted dispersal, and to competition, respectively.

Methods

For 8 years, we monitored the spatial autocorrelation in species richness and evenness of riparian plant communities in both uncut control and experimentally clearcut sites in the boreal forest of Alberta, Canada. The overall spatial autocorrelation for each of these two indices of diversity was separately decomposed into the components of positive and negative spatial autocorrelations through eigendecomposition of the spatial weighting matrix.

Results

Negative spatial autocorrelation in richness and evenness were more pronounced in the clearcut than uncut sites, although positive spatial autocorrelations in all indices of diversity remained unchanged. Effect of disturbance was not detected on the overall spatial autocorrelation.

Conclusions

Disturbance increases negative spatial autocorrelation in species richness and evenness, with a stronger increase in evenness than richness, which underscores the importance of competition in structuring post-disturbance riparian communities. Our results also highlight the need for assessing positive and negative spatial autocorrelation and different aspects of diversity separately in understanding disturbance effects on the spatial pattern, or identifying processes from patterns.

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Acknowledgements

This study was part of the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Canada funded CRD project ‘FORWARD’ and partners (http://forward.lakeheadu.ca/). We thank Kirk Moloney, MSI Khan and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. Rebecca L. MacDonald

    Present address: Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, 101 Exchange Avenue, Vaughan, ON, L4K 5R6, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Natural Resources Management, Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Road, Thunder Bay, ON, P7B 5E1, Canada

    Shekhar R. Biswas, Rebecca L. MacDonald & Han Y. H. Chen

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  1. Shekhar R. Biswas
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Correspondence to Shekhar R. Biswas.

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Biswas, S.R., MacDonald, R.L. & Chen, H.Y.H. Disturbance increases negative spatial autocorrelation in species diversity. Landscape Ecol 32, 823–834 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-017-0488-9

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