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Spatial Patterns and Functional Redundancies in a Changing Boreal Lake Landscape

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Abstract

Global transformations extend beyond local habitats; therefore, larger-scale approaches are needed to assess community-level responses and resilience to unfolding environmental changes. Using long-term data (1996–2011), we evaluated spatial patterns and functional redundancies in the littoral invertebrate communities of 85 Swedish lakes, with the objective of assessing their potential resilience to environmental change at regional scales (that is, spatial resilience). Multivariate spatial modeling was used to differentiate groups of invertebrate species exhibiting spatial patterns in composition and abundance (that is, deterministic species) from those lacking spatial patterns (that is, stochastic species). We then determined the functional feeding attributes of the deterministic and stochastic invertebrate species, to infer resilience. Between one and three distinct spatial patterns in invertebrate composition and abundance were identified in approximately one-third of the species; the remainder were stochastic. We observed substantial differences in metrics between deterministic and stochastic species. Functional richness and diversity decreased over time in the deterministic group, suggesting a loss of resilience in regional invertebrate communities. However, taxon richness and redundancy increased monotonically in the stochastic group, indicating the capacity of regional invertebrate communities to adapt to change. Our results suggest that a refined picture of spatial resilience emerges if patterns of both the deterministic and stochastic species are accounted for. Spatially extensive monitoring may help increase our mechanistic understanding of community-level responses and resilience to regional environmental change, insights that are critical for developing management and conservation agendas in this current period of rapid environmental transformation.

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Acknowledgments

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the Swedish Agency for Water and Marine Management, and the many people involved in the monitoring program for making the analyses of these datasets possible are gratefully acknowledged. This work was funded by the August T. Larsson Foundation (NJ Faculty, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) and the Swedish Research Councils Vetenskapsrådet (2014-5828) and Formas (2014-1193). The Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is jointly supported by a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Geological Survey, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Wildlife Management Institute. Any use of trade names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. We thank Graeme Cumming, Dirac Twidwell, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on previous manuscript versions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, PO Box 7050, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden

    David G. Angeler & Richard K. Johnson

  2. U.S. Geological Survey, Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

    Craig R. Allen

  3. Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68503-0984, USA

    Daniel R. Uden

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  1. David G. Angeler
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Correspondence to David G. Angeler.

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Authors Contributions

DGA, CRA, DRU and RKJ conceived the study. DGA analyzed the data and lead the writing with contributions from CRA, DRU and RKJ.

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Appendix 1

Names and geographical position of lakes. Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 15 kb)

Appendix 2

Spatial patterns detected by RDA between 1996 and 2011. Supplementary material 2 (DOCX 1125 kb)

Appendix 3

Results from variation partitioning analyses between 1996 and 2011. Supplementary material 3 (DOCX 16 kb)

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Angeler, D.G., Allen, C.R., Uden, D.R. et al. Spatial Patterns and Functional Redundancies in a Changing Boreal Lake Landscape. Ecosystems 18, 889–902 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-015-9871-z

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