Temporal and spatial concordance in community composition of phytoplankton, zooplankton, macroinvertebrate, crayfish, and fish on the Precambrian Shield

Abstract

Concordance among communities dictates how broadly we can extrapolate results derived from a set of ecosystems. We used Mantel tests to evaluate the degree of concordance in community composition among phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic macroinvertebrate, crayfish, and fish in eight lakes near Dorset, Ontario, Canada. Spatial concordance across lakes at the decadal scale was stronger (mean Mantel r = 0.51, standard deviation (SD) = 0.20) than both intra-annual agreement (mean Mantel r = 0.38, SD = 0.20) and temporal concordance within a single lake (mean Mantel r = 0.20, SD = 0.15). The degree of temporal concordance was not related to climatic fluctuations, with the exception of increased spatial synchrony in phytoplankton communities in 1997. Strength of overall spatial concordance was most commonly related to variability in chemical attributes of the study lakes. An understanding of the determinants of concordance among taxon groups is germane to the advancement of ecology in general, as well as biodiversity conservation strategies, ecosystem monitoring, and impact diagnosis.Résumé : La concordance entre les communautés détermine dans quelle mesure on peut extrapoler les résultats obtenus dans un ensemble d'écosystèmes. Nous utilisons des tests de Mantel pour évaluer l'importance de la concordance dans la composition de peuplements de phytoplancton, de zooplancton, de macroinvertébrés benthiques, d'écrevisses et de poissons dans huit lacs près de Dorset, Ontario, Canada. La concordance spatiale entre les lacs à l'échelle des décennies est plus forte (r moyen de Mantel = 0,51; écart type (SD) = 0,20) qu'à la fois l'accord entre les années (r moyen de Mantel = 0,38; SD = 0,20) et la concordance temporelle au sein d'un même lac (r moyen de Mantel = 0,20; SD = 0,15). L'importance de la concordance temporelle n'est pas reliée aux fluctuations climatiques, à l'exception d'un synchronisme spatial accru dans les communautés de phytoplancton en 1997. La force de la concordance spatiale globale est le plus souvent reliée à la variabilité des caractéristiques chimiques des lacs étudiés. La compréhension des facteurs déterminants de la concordance entre les groupes de taxons est d'intérêt pour le progrès de l'écologie en général, de même que pour les stratégies de conservation de la biodiversité, pour la surveillance des écosystèmes et pour l'identification des impacts.[Traduit par la Rédaction] Bowman et al. 932

Cross‐taxon congruence in lake plankton largely independent of environmental gradients

“…A recent study of floodplain lakes in Brazil found significant crosstaxon congruence between phyto-and zooplankton, but it was weak and inconsistent across groups (Padial et al 2012). Bowman et al (2008) found strong association between phyto-and zooplankton communities in eight Canadian lakes; the pattern was not, however, robust across years and lakes. Allen et al (1999b) found a significant association between the composition of zooplankton and sedimentary diatom communities in 186 northeastern United States lakes, but revealed no association in richness patterns (Allen et al 1999a).…”

“…Although coherent temporal changes have been observed for groups of lake plankton in a landscape, few studies have found spatial or temporal cross-taxon congruence between lake phyto-and zooplankton (Allen et al 1999b, Bowman et al 2008, Padial et al 2012, and the observed associations have been complex and not consistent between the different groups and studies. Furthermore, a number of studies have found diversity and composition of phyto-and zooplankton to be independent of each other (Allen et al 1999a, Declerck et al 2005, Tolonen et al 2005, Longmuir et al 2007, Doi et al 2013.…”

Concordance among fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages in streams of Indiana, USA

“…The use of multiple taxa rather than a single taxon of stream organisms in ecological studies appears to be necessary to interpret independent environmental influences and interactions (Bowman et al, 2008;Warfe et al, 2013). Fish and benthic invertebrate assemblages are commonly used as indicators for ecosystem integrity (Kilgour & Barton, 1999;Brown et al, 2012), and as predictors for co-occurring assemblages, including each other (Heino, 2010).…”

Concordance between Ephemeroptera and Trichoptera assemblage in streams from Cerrado – Amazonia transition

“…Studies on organism's distributions in nature have revealed recurring patterns along environmental gradients, such as changes in community structures and species composition; latitudinal congruence of diversity can arise even in unrelated groups from all biogeographical regions around the world (Heino, 2002;Bini et al, 2007). Similar spatial and temporal pattern among two or more taxa in relation to environmental gradient is called community concordance (Bowman et al, 2008). Concordant patterns may also represent common preferences and adaptations, biotic interactions, covariance of assemblage responses to determinant environmental properties or even historical factors related to habitat colonization and evolution (Bini et al, 2008).…”

“…Thus, studies of community concordance can be used to evaluate patterns in biological communities, biodiversity, as a measure of responses to environmental changes and the placement of different taxa in a single surrogate group (Cameron et al, 2008). Some authors found concordance between aquatic organisms with similar dispersal ability, similar sizes and habits requirements (Heino, 2010), among macroinvertebrates, fish and algae (Monaghan and Soares, 2010), between fish and birds (Paszkowski and Tonn, 2000) and among phytoplankton, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates, and fish (Bowman et al, 2008).…”