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Are aquatic assemblages from small water bodies more stochastic in dryer climates? An analysis of ostracod spring metacommunities

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Abstract

Metacommunity ecology describes community organisation considering both environmental and spatial processes. We tested the relative importance of environmental and spatial factors on spring ostracod assemblages from four European regions characterised by different climatic conditions (e.g. aridity). Pure and shared effects of environment and space were calculated using redundancy analysis and variation partitioning. Both environmental and spatial variables significantly explain assemblage variation, although with different relevance among areas. The amount of variation explained by environmental factors decreased with increasing climate aridity. The reduced size of spring habitats makes them prone to drying events, which are more frequent in dryer climates. Frequent disturbances may lead to local extinctions followed by colonisations from nearby sites, in a source–sink dynamics. Early recolonisation leads to random assemblages and reduces the match between organisms and environmental conditions. As a consequence, a low amount of community variation can be explained by environmental variables. Conversely, the settled communities from wetter climates best fit the ecological characteristics of sites, and deterministic processes, such as species sorting, dominate the assemblages. In conclusion, in the studied regions, ostracod communities from small water bodies of dryer climates seem to be mainly driven by stochastic dynamics when compared to more continental areas.

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Acknowledgements

Datasets originating from the following Projects contributed data to the present study: CRENODAT (funded by the Autonomous Province of Trento) and EBERs (funded by the Emilia Romagna Region). We would like to acknowledge the previous contribution of A. Baltanás and G. Tapia to the early versions of the Pyrenean and Valencian datasets. GR acknowledges the support of the LifeWatch network, and VP of the Interregional Association for Participation and Study in Agribusiness, Landscape and Environment Management. Finally, we would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the Associate Editor S. M. Thomaz for their suggestions which really improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, University of Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 11/A, 43124, Parma, Italy

    Melissa Rosati, Giampaolo Rossetti & Valentina Pieri

  2. Limnology and Phycology Section, Museo delle Scienze-MUSE, Corso del Lavoro e della Scienza 3, 38123, Trento, Italy

    Marco Cantonati

  3. Departament de Territori i Sostenibilitat, Generalitat de Catalunya, C. Clot de les Monges, 6-8, 25007, Lleida, Spain

    Josep R. Roca

  4. Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology and Department of Microbiology and Ecology, University of Valencia, Dr. Moliner 50, 46100, Burjassot, Valencia, Spain

    Francesc Mesquita-Joanes

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  1. Melissa Rosati
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  4. Valentina Pieri
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Correspondence to Melissa Rosati.

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Guest editors: Mary Kelly-Quinn, Jeremy Biggs & Stefanie von Fumetti / The Importance of Small Water Bodies: Insights from Research

Electronic supplementary material

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10750_2016_2938_MOESM1_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 1 (TIFF 326 kb) Map of Emilia Romagna springs. Colours and size of points represent the scores of the significant axis of RDA on spatial variables. Geographic scale of the map is given by a grid, which size in Km is given with the letter d in the upper part of the plot

10750_2016_2938_MOESM2_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 2 (TIFF 418 kb) Map of Alps springs. Colours and size of points represent the scores of the significant axis of RDA on spatial variables. Geographic scale of the map is given by a grid, which size in Km is given with the letter d in the upper part of the plot

10750_2016_2938_MOESM3_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 3 (TIFF 509 kb) Maps of Valencia springs. Colours and size of points represent the scores of each of the three significant axis of RDA on spatial variables. Geographic scale of the map is given by a grid, which size in Km is given with the letter d in the upper part of the plot

10750_2016_2938_MOESM4_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 4 (TIFF 354 kb) Map of Pyrenees springs. Colours and size of points represent the scores of the significant axis of RDA on spatial variables. Geographic scale of the map is given by a grid, which size in Km is given with the letter d in the upper part of the plot

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Rosati, M., Rossetti, G., Cantonati, M. et al. Are aquatic assemblages from small water bodies more stochastic in dryer climates? An analysis of ostracod spring metacommunities. Hydrobiologia 793, 199–212 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-016-2938-9

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