Protection areas favor diversity as they decrease the impact of anthropic disturbance on biological communities. Testing its effects on diverse biological communities is a pivotal step to understand how different trophic levels react to such management and conservation strategies. Here, we used data collected from 1993 to 2018 from a subtropical floodplain to evaluate the effect of the installation of a protection zone on the taxonomic and functional diversity of the phytoplankton community. We showed that the installation of the park had a positive effect on the aquatic community, mainly related to the decrease of cyanobacteria dominance and to the increase of phytoplankton functional groups. However, our results also suggested that dynamics occurring in a scale beyond the park seemed to influence key factors for the phytoplankton community, such as transparency and nutrient concentrations. Thus, although we showed that a compensatory measure had a positive effect on biodiversity, we believe that the establishment of protection zones must also consider and integrate the management of the river basin where the areas to be protected are located.
Floodplain environments have high biodiversity and provide many ecosystem services maintained by the flood pulses. The phytoplankton is essential to the functioning of these ecosystems, acting upon primary productivity and biogeochemical cycles. We evaluated phytoplankton in a river-lake flood system (Illinois River floodplain-USA) during a hydrological cycle and compared the taxonomic (species) and functional (morphologic-based functional groups – MBFG) approaches. As expected, greater species richness was registered in the river and higher biovolume in the lake, as well as the predominance of different MBFGs in each environment. Furthermore, seasonality drove richness and biovolume temporal variation due to the higher water levels during spring. The MBFG IV (i. e. without specialized traits), V (phytoflagellates) and VI (diatoms) were more important for richness and biovolume in both environments. We reinforce the fundamental role of the hydrodynamics characteristics, with higher phytoplankton biovolume values in the lake. Using MBFG resulted in a better explanation to the phytoplankton-environment relationship. Constant water column mixture and high turbidity selected species with traits (e.g. small size, presence of silica) specifically adapted to these conditions.
Although animal vectors facilitate algal dispersal, the specific role of individual vectors in the temporal dynamics of algal community establishment remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the effects of wind and animal vectors, specifically amphibians and odonates, on temporal variation in algal composition and abundance. We conducted a 33-day field experiment in 2018 with four treatments that included different propagule additives. We identified 74 algal species from 11 taxonomic groups, with Chlorophyceae being the most abundant. Species richness and density varied significantly after day 12. Similarity in species composition and density increased over time in all treatments, with more species added at the beginning of the experiment and more species lost at the end. Our results suggest that different vectors had different effects on the local beta-temporal diversity of algal communities. The influence of morphological differences among vectors and the number of dispersal vectors on the variation of beta diversity and community characteristics was observed. We found that dissimilarity changed more rapidly when there were multiple vectors capable of dispersing more individuals and species. The effectiveness of algal dispersal by different animal vectors and its influence on the temporal dynamics of algal communities can vary in different environments and over longer periods of time. Overall, our study highlights the importance of understanding dispersal control and its relationship to the temporal dynamics of algal communities
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