Dinoflagellate community structure under a metacommunity perspective: Assessing the relative importance of local filters and spatial dynamics

<em>Abstract</em>.—Community ecology increasingly seeks to integrate the influences of regional and historical processes with species interactions within local habitats. This broadened perspective is largely based on comparative approaches that employ “natural experiments” to identify factors shaping community structure. Because coastal rivers are separated from one another by insurmountable barriers (oceans or land), freshwater fishes are particularly well suited for comparative analyses of factors that influence fish community organization. In this chapter, we review how this comparative approach shed light on large-scale biodiversity gradients, community saturation, community convergence, density compensation, and the role of intrinsic and extrinsic factors in community dynamics. The main factors (e.g., river mouth discharge and history) empirically related to species richness of a river are well identified, and metacommunity ecology provides a fruitful conceptual framework for understanding how regional (river) species richness translates into local species richness. Much work remains to identify factors explaining differences among whole river basin assemblages with regard to ecological traits (e.g., trophic status and life history) composition and to assess whether trait-related environmental and biotic local filters act similarly over large spatial scales. One important conclusion that can be drawn from the studies reviewed here is that history cannot be neglected whatever the scale of investigation (global, river, or site). A second conclusion is that historical effects are not strong enough to blur the occurrence of qualitatively repeatable patterns of community structure over large spatial scale, which is encouraging because it suggests development of general predictive models of community structure is an attainable goal.

Download Full-text

The relative importance of spatial and temporal variation in predicting community structure at different scales as estimated from Markov chain models

Marine Ecology Progress Series ◽

10.3354/meps12286 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 583 ◽

pp. 15-34 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

SL Morello ◽

RJ Etter

Keyword(s):

Markov Chain ◽

Community Structure ◽

Temporal Variation ◽

Spatial And Temporal Variation ◽

Relative Importance ◽

Markov Chain Models

Download Full-text

Metacommunity ecology meets biogeography: effects of geographical region, spatial dynamics and environmental filtering on community structure in aquatic organisms

Oecologia ◽

10.1007/s00442-016-3750-y ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 183 (1) ◽

pp. 121-137 ◽

Cited By ~ 50

Author(s):

Jani Heino ◽

Janne Soininen ◽

Janne Alahuhta ◽

Jyrki Lappalainen ◽

Risto Virtanen

Keyword(s):

Community Structure ◽

Spatial Dynamics ◽

Environmental Filtering ◽

Aquatic Organisms ◽

Geographical Region ◽

Metacommunity Ecology

Download Full-text

Chaetognath assemblages along the Pacific Coast and adjacent inland waters of the Philippines: relative importance of oceanographic and biological factors

ICES Journal of Marine Science ◽

10.1093/icesjms/fsr209 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 69 (3) ◽

pp. 410-420 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Mary Mar P. Noblezada ◽

Wilfredo L. Campos

Keyword(s):

Community Structure ◽

Pacific Coast ◽

Mass Movement ◽

The Philippines ◽

Inland Waters ◽

Relative Importance ◽

Biological Factors ◽

Comprehensive Information ◽

The Pacific ◽

Plankton Distribution

Abstract Noblezada, M. M. P., and Campos, W. L. 2012. Chaetognath assemblages along the Pacific Coast and adjacent inland waters of the Philippines: relative importance of oceanographic and biological factors. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69: 410–420. When studying plankton distribution, it is necessary to investigate the biology of the target organisms and the surrounding physical environment. Station and species groupings are only useful if they provide insight into the environmental associations of the species in the group. The study covers two geographic regions: the Pacific Coast (Bicol Shelf) and inland waters (San Bernardino Strait, Ticao Pass, Sibuyan, and Visayan Seas) of the Philippines. Comprehensive information is provided on chaetognath assemblages and distribution within the regions. The findings are integrated with oceanographic conditions and phenomena that define the characteristics of the subareas and consideration given to how these conditions affect chaetognath ecology. A comparison is also provided of the community structure of the two regions, and the possible use of chaetognaths as indicator species of water mass movement and oceanographic phenomena explored. In all, 28 284 specimens were examined, and 33 species from 17 genera were identified. Chaetognath distributions, abundance, and community structure were analysed using dissimilarity indices and multiple regression. The results show that the distribution of chaetognaths agrees well with the movement of oceanic water from the Pacific into the central part of the archipelago.

Download Full-text

The relative importance of seed competition, resource competition and perturbations on community structure

Biogeosciences ◽

10.5194/bg-8-1107-2011 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 8 (5) ◽

pp. 1107-1120 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

K. Bohn ◽

J. G. Dyke ◽

R. Pavlick ◽

B. Reineking ◽

B. Reu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Population Dynamics ◽

Community Structure ◽

Resource Competition ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Global Scale ◽

Relative Importance ◽

Plant Strategies ◽

Primary Selection ◽

Growth And Reproduction ◽

Do So

Abstract. While the regional climate is the primary selection pressure for whether a plant strategy can survive, however, competitive interactions strongly affect the relative abundances of plant strategies within communities. Here, we investigate the relative importance of competition and perturbations on the development of vegetation community structure. To do so, we develop DIVE (Dynamics and Interactions of VEgetation), a simple general model that links plant strategies to their competitive dynamics, using growth and reproduction characteristics that emerge from climatic constraints. The model calculates population dynamics based on establishment, mortality, invasion and exclusion in the presence of different strengths of perturbations, seed and resource competition. The highest levels of diversity were found in simulations without competition as long as mortality is not too high. However, reasonable successional dynamics were only achieved when resource competition is considered. Under high levels of competition, intermediate levels of perturbations were required to obtain coexistence. Since succession and coexistence are observed in plant communities, we conclude that the DIVE model with competition and intermediate levels of perturbation represents an adequate way to model population dynamics. Because of the simplicity and generality of DIVE, it could be used to understand vegetation structure and functioning at the global scale and the response of vegetation to global change.

Download Full-text