Stochastic and deterministic processes drive wetland community assembly across a gradient of environmental filtering

Daniel, Jody; Gleason, Jennifer Erin; Cottenie, Karl; Rooney, Rebecca C.

doi:10.1111/oik.05987

Cited by 61 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 37 publications

(99 reference statements)

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“…Chase, 2007;Florencio, Díaz-Paniagua, Gómez-Rodríguez, & Serrano, 2014;Hill, Death, et al, 2017;Hill, Heino, et al, 2017). Conversely, a strong influence of stochasticity in similar systems has also been reported, which has been linked to high productivity and drought (Chase, 2010;Daniel et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…In Mediterranean regions, temporary pond fauna has adapted to cope with droughts and variable hydroperiod lengths (Boix et al, 2016;Boix, Sala, & Moreno-Amich, 2001). On the one hand, such variability in hydrological conditions has been related to greater stochasticity in the community assembly of temporary wetlands (Daniel, Gleason, Cottenie, & Rooney, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Addressing trait selection patterns in temporary ponds in response to wildfire disturbance and seasonal succession

Cunillera‐Montcusí

Arim

Gascón

et al. 2020

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Mediterranean ecosystems are increasingly threatened by disturbances such as wildfires. These disturbances are expected to shift the selective pressures that determine trait‐dependent community assembly. In addition, the stochasticity in species assembly may decrease because of the introduction of strong selection regimes or may increase because of random variation in recruitment. However, these changes in the selection profile and stochasticity in disturbed communities have seldom been evaluated. We examined the relative roles of wildfire disturbance, local conditions and successional dynamics on the assembly of aquatic macroinvertebrate communities. We used the theory of community assembly by trait selection (CATS) to identify traits under selection and to estimate their dependence on wildfire disturbance and environmental gradients. We took advantage of a natural wildfire that partially burned a Mediterranean system of temporary ponds, which were surveyed before and after the wildfire, creating a natural before‐after‐control‐impact design. Before the wildfire, the burned and unburned ponds did not show differences in the selected traits. After the wildfire event, species with larger body sizes and scrapers were favoured in the burned ponds, while collectors and active dispersers were underrepresented. Nonetheless, local environmental conditions and successional dynamics had greater relevance in the selection of traits than the wildfire. This suggests that assembly mechanisms were largely determined by seasonal successional changes regardless of wildfire disturbance. Finally, the relevance of the analysed traits diminished during the hydroperiod, suggesting more stochastic assemblages and/or a replacement in the set of selected traits. Despite the prominent role of seasonal succession over wildfire, this disturbance was associated with a change in the selection strength over specific traits related with feeding strategies and species life histories. Both hydroperiod and wildfire highlighted a strong role of trait‐mediated processes (i.e. niche assembly). Therefore, the predicted increase in the frequency and intensity of wildfires is likely to result in community functional shifts. Furthermore, stochasticity was also important for community assembly, particularly from the middle towards the end of the hydroperiod. Our results evidenced the strong relevance of successional changes in trait‐mediated assembly mechanisms and its interplay with wildfire disturbance in temporary pond communities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing trait selection patterns in temporary ponds in response to wildfire disturbance and seasonal succession

Cunillera‐Montcusí

Arim

Gascón

et al. 2020

Journal of Animal Ecology

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“…Furthermore, in permanent and large lakes such as our study lakes, environmental filtering is expected to be more prominent in community assembly as compared to smaller and temporary wetlands, where stochastic events and priority effect are expected to be major determinants of assembly (Daniel et al, 2019;Li et al, 2019). However, it should also be noted that there have been other studies reporting neutrally assembled waterbird communities (spring and autumn populations in Che et al, 2019; populations of temporary wetlands in Daniel et al, 2019;de Arruda Almeida et al, 2019) and functionally over-dispersed waterbird communities (the eastern populations in Che et al, 2018;winter populations in Che et al, 2019). Overall, various factors including climate, wetland age, wetland size, season of the year, population densities, and trophic states of wetlands seem to be capable of influencing waterbird community assembly.…”

Section: Functional Diversitymentioning

confidence: 96%

“…For organisms like waterbirds, which have high-dispersal capabilities and can respond to changes in the environment quickly, priority effects (Chase, 2003) and stochastic processes (Hubbell, 2001) are less likely to be dominant players in community assembly (Daniel et al, 2019;Fukami, 2015;Li et al, 2019). One may argue that highly mobile taxa such as birds should rely on larger landscapes and should be exposed to filtering at the landscape scale (Rooney, Bayley, Creed, & Wilson, 2012).…”

Section: Functional Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in functional composition and diversity of waterbirds: The roles of water level and submerged macrophytes

et al. 2020

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1. Water level and submerged macrophytes are critical players for the functioning of shallow lake ecosystems; understanding how waterbird communities respond to changes in both can have important implications for conservation and management. Here, we evaluated the effects of changes in water level and submerged macrophyte status on wintering waterbird community size, functional group abundances, functional diversity (FD), and community assembly by using a dataset compiled over 50 years. 2. We built generalised linear models to evaluate the effects of water level and submerged macrophyte status on the above-listed attributes of the waterbird communities by using midwinter waterbird censuses, water level measurements, and submerged macrophyte surveys, along with submerged macrophyte macrofossil records from two shallow lakes in Turkey. Using a relevant set of functional traits, we defined functional groups, calculated four FD measures, and simulated null distributions of the FD measures for assessing assembly rules. 3. We found that macrophyte-dominated years had significantly higher abundances of waterbirds in one of the study lakes, and had more diving herbivores and omnivores in both lakes, while diving/scooping fish-eating waterbird abundance was lower in macrophyte-dominated years. Community size in Lake Beyşehir exhibited a negative association with water level; surprisingly, however, none of the functional group abundances and FD indices were significantly related to water level. 4. In our study communities, standardised effect sizes of functional richness and functional dispersion-two indices that are particularly sensitive to community assembly processes-were mostly lower than those of randomly assembled communities, which implies functional clustering. Shifts to a scarce-macrophyte state were associated with increases in these two indices, possibly due to either changes in the relative strength of environmental filtering and limiting similarity in community assembly or sampling of transitional communities. Further studies covering a wider range of the trophic/macrophyte status spectrum are needed to be certain. 5. The results of this study indicate that shifts between abundant and scarce-macrophyte states can have significant effects on wintering waterbird abundances, FD and community assembly. The results also suggest that shallow lakes in [Correction added on 23 July, after first online publication: The affiliation of the third author has been updated in this version.] 1846 | ÖZGENCIL Et aL. 1 | INTRODUC TI ON A variety of terrestrial and aquatic organisms depend on freshwater lakes to exist (Hoverman & Johnson, 2012). Among these organisms are waterbirds that have become the focus of conservation and management efforts in shallow lakes and wetlands due to their widespread and dramatic decline (Green et al., 2017; Ramirez, Rodriguez, Seoane, Figuerola, & Bustamante, 2018). Waterbirds of the Northern Hemisphere depend on the lakes in mid-latitudes as essential wintering habitats (Cramp, 1977; Weller & Ba...

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“…Wetlands in the PPR differ in the length of time ponded water is present (i.e., hydroperiod), some containing ponded water year-round and others drying up a few weeks after spring snowmelt Kantrud 1971, Leibowitz andVining 2003). While the diversity and community structure of birds, aquatic macroinvertebrates and plants in PPR wetlands appear directly impacted by hydroperiod (Casanova and Brock 2000, Ruhí et al 2014, Daniel et al 2019), . Functional dispersion of wetland birds, invertebrates and plants more strongly influenced by hydroperiod than each other.…”

Section: Wetlands Of Varying Ponded Water Permanence In the Northwestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional dispersion of wetland birds, invertebrates and plants more strongly influenced by hydroperiod than each other

Daniel

Rooney

2020

Preprint

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The relative role of biological and abiotic filters on the assembly of co-occurring taxa is widely debated. While some authors point to biological interactions (e.g., competition) as the stronger driver of ecological selection, others assert that abiotic conditions are more important because they filter species at the regional level. Because communities influenced by a dominant abiotic filter, (e.g., Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) wetlands, each varying in ponded water permanence), often have strong cross-taxon relationships, we can study these communities to better understand the relative influence of abiotic vs biotic filters on community structure. Using functional dispersion as our measure of communities, we test six alternate hypotheses about the relative importance of various pathways representing influence of biological and permanence filters on birds, aquatic macroinvertebrates and wetland plants in the northwest PPR using structural equation modeling. We aimed to understand whether: 1) ponded water permanence alone explained functional dispersion; 2) the influence of permanence on functional dispersion was direct or mediated; and 3) abiotic filtering by permanence was stronger than biotic filtering by co-occurring taxa. The best model suggests that there is a direct influence of permanence on the functional dispersion of each taxonomic group and that both bird and macroinvertebrate functional dispersion are causally related to plant functional dispersion, though for invertebrates the influence of plants is much less than that of permanence. Thus, the relative importance of wetland permanence and the functional dispersion of co-occurring taxa depends on which taxon is considered in PPR wetlands.

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Stochastic and deterministic processes drive wetland community assembly across a gradient of environmental filtering

Cited by 61 publications

References 37 publications

Addressing trait selection patterns in temporary ponds in response to wildfire disturbance and seasonal succession

Addressing trait selection patterns in temporary ponds in response to wildfire disturbance and seasonal succession

Changes in functional composition and diversity of waterbirds: The roles of water level and submerged macrophytes

Functional dispersion of wetland birds, invertebrates and plants more strongly influenced by hydroperiod than each other

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