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Environmental factors driving phytoplankton taxonomic and functional diversity in Amazonian floodplain lakes

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Abstract

Understanding how species are structured in space and time and how they are functionally related to environmental conditions is still a challenge in ecology. In this study, we assessed the predictive power of lake morphometry, physical and chemical conditions of the water, and zooplankton density in relation to phytoplankton taxonomic and functional diversity in Amazonian floodplain lakes during low- and high-water periods. We also examined to what extent taxonomic and functional indexes were coupled. Taxonomic diversity was evaluated by species richness and Shannon index, and functional diversity by functional richness (FRic) and community-weighted mean trait value (CWM). The relative importance of predictive factors was evaluated by model selection, multi-model inference and correlations. We found that phytoplankton taxonomic and functional diversity indexes were mostly related to the same factors within the low- and high-water periods. Total phosphorus was the main driving factor in the low water, while euphotic zone depth and zooplankton density were the main driving factors in the high water. Taxonomic and functional diversity indexes were weakly coupled in the low water, but strongly coupled in the high water. Our results highlight that phytoplankton taxonomic and functional diversity can differ between periods, but respond similarly to environmental driving factors.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the associate editor Luigi Naselli-Flores and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, Janet W. Reid for revising the English language, and the Mineração Rio do Norte and ICMbio for fieldwork support. This study was sponsored by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) (fellowship to SJC) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) (fellowships to FR, JCN, VH, RLB, and VFF).

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Cardoso, S.J., Nabout, J.C., Farjalla, V.F. et al. Environmental factors driving phytoplankton taxonomic and functional diversity in Amazonian floodplain lakes. Hydrobiologia 802, 115–130 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-017-3244-x

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