Abstract
Responses in taxonomic and functional composition of communities were analysed in small Amazonian streams at the small and large scale (habitat patches, river segment scale, and catchment scale). We hypothesised that similar responses in community structure to local environmental factors were a correlation between taxonomic and functional composition. To evaluate the response of taxonomic composition to environmental variables, redundancy analysis (RDA) and RLQ analysis were performed to investigate the response of community abundance (L) as a function of the environment (R) and traits (Q). The fourth-corner analysis was applied to summarize specific interactions between environmental variables and traits. Then, community taxonomic composition was associated with models at multiple scales of habitat (i.e. riparian/channel, substrates, and water variables). Likewise, the fourth-corner tests and RLQ axes showed associations between trait composition and environmental variables related to variables, such as riparian cover and channel morphology followed by variation in substrate size and composition. Unexpectedly, these results did not show specific associations between unique environmental variables and traits. At last, results showed that local conditions of stream habitat regulated community structure and functional composition of aquatic insects. Thus, these findings indicate that the local environmental filtering appears to be strongly associated with selected species traits adapted to occur in a range of habitat conditions. Despite the low number of analysed streams, these results provide important information for understanding the simultaneous variation in functional trait composition and community composition of aquatic insect assemblages.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. Luciano Fogaça de Assis Montag, for coordinating the project FAPESPA: ICAAF no. 85/2014 Edital 008/2013 - PRONEM. We are also grateful to Darlison Andrade and José Risonei Assis da Silva, administrators of Floresta Nacional do Tapajós, and the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio) staff for assistance in field sampling and research permit to study the area.
Funding
This work was financially supported by Fundação Amazônia Paraense de Amparo à Pesquisa (Pará State Research Foundation - FAPESPA) through the project FAPESPA: ICAAF no. 85/2014 Edital 008/2013 - PRONEM for financial support. Scholarships were financially provided by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (Brazilian National Research Council - CNPq) to GN (process 141866/2013-6), EC (process 165908/2014-9), LJ (process 307597/2016-4), and NH (process 307849/2014-7).
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GN and LJ conceived the research. GN and EJC conducted the field sampling and analysed the data. NH contributed with laboratorial training and revised the taxonomic data. GN wrote the manuscript. All authors revised and approved the manuscript.
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Edited by Yulin Gao – CAAS, China
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Nicacio, G., Cunha, E.J., Hamada, N. et al. How Habitat Filtering Can Affect Taxonomic and Functional Composition of Aquatic Insect Communities in Small Amazonian Streams. Neotrop Entomol 49, 652–661 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13744-020-00780-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13744-020-00780-z