Scaling fish metacommunities in stream networks: synthesis and future research avenues

Erős, Tibor

doi:10.1556/168.2017.18.1.9

Cited by 35 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 124 publications

(122 reference statements)

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“…During the past decade, there has been a rapid increase in research showing how local communities are influenced by dispersal of organisms across various spatial scales and involving ecological processes such as habitat selection and responses to disturbances or competition (Erős, 2017;Erős, Takács, Specziár, Schmera, & Sály, 2017;Leibold & Mikkelson, 2002;Leibold et al, 2004;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do metacommunity theories explain spatial variation in fish assemblage structure in a pristine tropical river?

2018

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Understanding processes driving patterns of species distribution and diversity is one of the main objectives of community ecology. There has been a growing recognition that local environmental conditions are not the only factor structuring ecological communities, and that large‐scale spatial variation and dispersal also have major influences. The aim of our study was to evaluate spatial variation in fish assemblage structure along the longitudinal fluvial gradient of the Bita River, a nearly pristine tributary of the Orinoco River in the Llanos region of Colombia. Standardised surveys conducted at 34 sites throughout the basin during the low water period in January and March 2016 yielded 25,928 fish specimens representing 201 species. Twenty‐seven environmental variables were recorded at each site, and asymmetric eigenvector maps were used to model spatial variables. To understand spatial variation in local fish assemblages and their relationships with the environmental and spatial variables, two approaches were used. First, we applied the elements of metacommunity structure framework, followed by a variation decomposition analysis that allowed the metacommunity to be classified according to six alternative patterns of species distribution and four alternative metacommunity paradigms. We hypothesised that at a basin scale a major fraction of variation in structure is explained by a pure environmental effect and metacommunity patterns should reveal a Clementsian distribution. At a more regional scale (localities within a river section), assemblages in upstream and downstream regions may reflect different metacommunity processes. Because headwater streams are isolated within the river network, they should receive fewer migrants and may have local assemblages strongly influenced by local environmental conditions and species sorting with one of three possible distributional patterns (Clementsian, Gleasonian, or evenly spaced) would be observed. Conversely, downstream sites closer to the river mouth should be influenced by high dispersal, resulting in a greater importance of spatial factors and the mass effect, with metacommunity patterns nested along the longitudinal gradient. Our results suggest that the fish metacommunity in the Bita River exhibits a Clementsian distribution, implying that species respond to the environmental and fluvial gradient as groups along the longitudinal gradient. These replacements were associated with environmental heterogeneity, especially regarding habitat features. Similarly, the variation partitioning analysis showed that the pure environmental component was higher than the pure spatial component, which is consistent with species sorting. In this paper, we demonstrated that variation partitioning and metacommunity structure analyses provided complementary findings to infer processes structuring fish assemblages in the Bita River. Both approaches identified species sorting as the principal structuring processes in this system. Therefore, strategies to preserve fish diversity...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do metacommunity theories explain spatial variation in fish assemblage structure in a pristine tropical river?

2018

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“…The occurrence of chestnut lamprey, black redhorse, and greenside darter in only the contemporary sampling, and in the largest stream sampled, might have been related to detection efficiency. Sampling efficiency declines with increasing stream size (Erős, ), and the levels of effort in historical and contemporary sampling might have been insufficient to detect the occurrence of all of the species that were actually present. Conversely, the occurrence of redear sunfish and western mosquitofish in the contemporary sampling only, and in smaller streams where sampling is more efficient, was probably related to urbanization.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

If you build it, they will go: A case study of stream fish diversity loss in an urbanizing riverscape

Perkin

Murphy

Murray

et al. 2019

Aquatic Conservation

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Stream fish diversity is threatened by anthropogenic environmental alterations to landscapes, and successful conservation requires knowledge of the processes that degrade diversity. A primary step in identifying diversity losses is the comparison between historical and contemporary states of landscapes and fish assemblages, but uncertainty remains regarding the appropriate spatial scales of investigation. Historical data collected in 1976 were paired with two years of contemporary replication (2015, 2016) to assess fish diversity change at 10 sites in Blackburn Fork, TN, USA. Analyses focused on a nested hierarchy of spatial scales, including sampling sites (fine scale), nested within stream orders (intermediate scale), nested within the entire catchment (broad scale). Diversity change between 1976 and 2015–16 was assessed using traditional diversity metrics (site scale) and rarefaction (stream‐order scale), whereas spatial variation in contemporary diversity (2015–16) was assessed with nonmetric multidimensional scaling (catchment scale). At the site scale, locations on the east side of Blackburn Fork and in close proximity to developed land experienced diversity loss. At the stream‐order scale, the effective number of species declined in first‐order streams where land development was concentrated, but no consistent species losses occurred in other stream orders. At the catchment scale, assemblages responded significantly to stream size but not land use, perhaps because diversity was already homogenized by 2015–16. Mapping 40 years of land‐use change across the catchment underscored a pattern of spatial alignment between developed lands and stream fish diversity loss. This study highlights the benefits of considering multiple spatial scales when assessing historical change in stream fish assemblages, and highlights stronger inference derived from historical comparisons relative to contemporary space‐for‐time substitutions. This framework combines recent analytical advances in rarefaction with a riverscape perspective, and can be applied to conserve streams, and their biota, in riverscapes around the world.

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“…We found no clear longitudinal changes in the structure of macroinvertebrates in the potamon, or at least between site variability in assemblage structure was large and comparable with changes in longitudinal variability. Indeed, despite its huge spatial extent, longitudinal changes in the potamon were relatively small compared with the rhithron (mainly nonwadeable rivers) where usually larger changes can be observed at smaller spatial extents (Erős, ; Vannote et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of littoral and deep water sampling methods for assessing macroinvertebrate assemblages along the longitudinal profile of a very large river (the Danube River, Europe)

Szekeres

Borza

Csányi

et al. 2019

River Research & Apps

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We comparatively examined the role of littoral and deep water sampling methods in assessing macroinvertebrate assemblages and in characterizing longitudinal changes in assemblage structure along >2,500-km-long course of the Danube River, Europe.The effectiveness of detecting taxa corresponded well with an inshore-offshore gradient in sampling (i.e., distance from shore). Nevertheless, each method (i.e., littoral multihabitat sampling, kick and sweep sampling, and deep water dredging) contributed to some degree to overall taxa richness and species composition. Sampling in different depth zones characterized different assemblages, and consequently, inshore-offshore position was at least as important determinant of assemblage structure as longitudinal position of sampling sites in the river. Although we found significant congruency in the spatial variability of assemblages among the sampling methods, the relationships were only moderate. Our study on the large Danube River confirms studies from smaller rivers in other geographic regions that littoral monitoring provides higher taxa richness and more responsive changes to longitudinal gradients than deep water samples. Nevertheless, it also shows that sampling in different depth zones provides supplementary information on assemblage structure. Understanding changes in macroinvertebrate assemblages related to differences in sampling method is crucial to improve the bioassessment and environmental management of large rivers.

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Scaling fish metacommunities in stream networks: synthesis and future research avenues

Cited by 35 publications

References 124 publications

Do metacommunity theories explain spatial variation in fish assemblage structure in a pristine tropical river?

Do metacommunity theories explain spatial variation in fish assemblage structure in a pristine tropical river?

If you build it, they will go: A case study of stream fish diversity loss in an urbanizing riverscape

Comparison of littoral and deep water sampling methods for assessing macroinvertebrate assemblages along the longitudinal profile of a very large river (the Danube River, Europe)

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