Journal
DIVERSITY-BASEL
Volume 14, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/d14010028
Keywords
macroinvertebrate metacommunity; temporal variation; environmental filtering; spatial processes; alpine stream; dry-hot valley
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation Program of P.R. China - Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) [31760126, U1602262, 31960255, SQ2019QZKK2002]
- Dali University
- Key Laboratory of Yunnan State Education Department on Erhai Lake Basin Protection and the Sustainable Development
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This study assessed the impact of ecological factors and temporal dynamics on the macroinvertebrate meta-community assembly in an alpine stream in China. The results showed that both spatial structuring and environmental filtering contribute to the structure of the meta-community, with their relative contributions changing over time. Environmental variables were found to be the most important predictors of community organization, but spatial determinants also played a significant role.
While macroinvertebrates are extensively investigated in many river ecosystems, meta-community ecology perspectives in alpine streams are very limited. We assessed the role of ecological factors and temporal dynamics in the macroinvertebrate meta-community assembly of an alpine stream situated in a dry-hot valley of Baima Snow Mountain, China. We found that spatial structuring and environmental filtering jointly drive the structure of macroinvertebrate meta-community, with relative contributions to the variance in community composition changing over time. RDA ordination and variation partitioning indicate that environmental variables are the most important predictors of community organization in most scenarios, whereas spatial determinants also play a significant role. Moreover, the explanatory power, identity, and the relative significance of ecological factors change over time. Particularly, in the years 2018 and 2019, stronger environmental filtering was found shaping community assembly, suggesting that deterministic mechanisms predominated in driving community dynamics. However, spatial factors had a stronger predictive power on meta-community structures in 2017, implying conspicuous dispersal mechanisms which may be owing to increased connectivity amongst sites. Thereby, we inferred that the alpine stream macroinvertebrate metacommunity composition can be regulated by the interaction of both spatial processes and environmental filtering, with relative contributions varying over time. Based on these findings, we suggest that community ecology studies in aquatic systems should be designed beyond single snapshot investigations.
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