Aquatic communities in arid landscapes: local conditions, dispersal traits and landscape configuration determine local biodiversity

Aim To understand how environmental conditions and landscape structure interact at different spatial scales to shape the community composition of arid zone aquatic invertebrates with different dispersal abilities. Location Australia. Methods For each of five drainage basins and for their encompassing region (Pilbara), we built matrices of dissimilarities in presence–absence patterns of aquatic invertebrate community composition. This was carried out for all taxa collectively and separately for five dispersal trait groups: obligate aquatics, passive aerial dispersers, animals moving by aerial phoresy, weak and strong fliers. We analysed correlations between community dissimilarities and (1) dissimilarities in local environmental conditions, (2) geographic distances and (3) landscape resistance distances among the sites from which invertebrates were sampled. Calculation of landscape resistances accounted for longitudinal connectivity along the river channels (least-cost-path), lateral connectivity between streams and the potential effects of rugged topography on invertebrate dispersal. Results Local environmental factors and landscape resistances explained differences in community composition at the regional scale. In basins with complex topography, local environmental conditions were the main factor explaining community dissimilarities in most dispersal groups. Conversely, in basins where flatter topography meant that moderate to high lateral connectivity between streams is possible, the spatial configuration of the dendritic network determined the community composition of most dispersal trait groups. Geographic and least-cost-path distances were poor predictors of community composition. None of the groups showed a consistent correlation with environmental factors alone, or just landscape resistances, across all basins. Main conclusions Local environmental conditions, hydrological connectivity and landscape resistance to dispersal are all important influences on community composition of arid zone aquatic invertebrates. The impact of each of these factors varies with dispersal trait group and spatial configuration of basins: the importance of lateral connectivity for explaining a substantial proportion of community composition points to a major role of flooding regimes in maintaining biological communities.

[1]  P. Peres‐Neto,et al.  The role of environmental and spatial processes in structuring lake communities from bacteria to fish. , 2006, Ecology.

[2]  B. Mcrae,et al.  ISOLATION BY RESISTANCE , 2006, Evolution; international journal of organic evolution.

[3]  Andy M. Reynolds,et al.  Beating the Odds in the Aerial Lottery: Passive Dispersers Select Conditions at Takeoff That Maximize Their Expected Fitness on Landing , 2013, The American Naturalist.

[4]  H. Possingham,et al.  The influence of multiple dispersal mechanisms and landscape structure on population clustering and connectivity in fragmented artesian spring snail populations , 2008, Molecular ecology.

[5]  Viral B. Shah,et al.  Using circuit theory to model connectivity in ecology, evolution, and conservation. , 2008, Ecology.

[6]  David M Theobald,et al.  Spatial population genetic structure and limited dispersal in a Rocky Mountain alpine stream insect , 2006, Molecular ecology.

[7]  B. Vanschoenwinkel,et al.  Wind mediated dispersal of freshwater invertebrates in a rock pool metacommunity: differences in dispersal capacities and modes , 2009, Hydrobiologia.

[8]  D. Lytle,et al.  Aquatic insects in a sea of desert: population genetic structure is shaped by limited dispersal in a naturally fragmented landscape , 2013 .

[9]  J. Freeland,et al.  Dispersal in freshwater invertebrates , 2001 .

[10]  R. Shiel,et al.  An arid zone awash with diversity: patterns in the distribution of aquatic invertebrates in the Pilbara region of Western Australia , 2010 .

[11]  Jonathan M. Chase,et al.  Navigating the multiple meanings of β diversity: a roadmap for the practicing ecologist. , 2011, Ecology letters.

[12]  J. Row,et al.  Habitat distribution influences dispersal and fine‐scale genetic population structure of eastern foxsnakes (Mintonius gloydi) across a fragmented landscape , 2010, Molecular ecology.

[13]  R. Stoks,et al.  Lotic dispersal of lentic macroinvertebrates , 2006 .

[14]  P. White,et al.  The distance decay of similarity in biogeography and ecology , 1999 .

[15]  M. Fortin,et al.  Comparison of the Mantel test and alternative approaches for detecting complex multivariate relationships in the spatial analysis of genetic data , 2010, Molecular ecology resources.

[16]  J. Heino,et al.  Context dependency and metacommunity structuring in boreal headwater streams , 2012 .

[17]  Pierre Legendre,et al.  Aquatic heterotrophic bacteria: Modeling in the presence of spatial autocorrelation , 1988 .

[18]  F. Sheldon,et al.  Climate change adaptation guidelines for arid zone aquatic ecosystems and freshwater biodiversity , 2013 .

[19]  M. Bogan,et al.  Aerial dispersal of aquatic invertebrates along and away from arid-land streams , 2012, Freshwater Science.

[20]  N. Mantel.  The detection of disease clustering and a generalized regression approach. , 1967, Cancer research.

[21]  F. Sheldon,et al.  Conservation value of variable connectivity: aquatic invertebrate assemblages of channel and floodplain habitats of a central Australian arid-zone river, Cooper Creek , 2002 .

[22]  D. Auerbach,et al.  Metacommunity theory as a multispecies, multiscale framework for studying the influence of river network structure on riverine communities and ecosystems , 2011, Journal of the North American Benthological Society.

[23]  C. Townsend,et al.  A truce with neutral theory: local deterministic factors, species traits and dispersal limitation together determine patterns of diversity in stream invertebrates. , 2006, The Journal of animal ecology.

[24]  L. Beheregaray,et al.  Islands of water in a sea of dry land: hydrological regime predicts genetic diversity and dispersal in a widespread fish from Australia’s arid zone, the golden perch (Macquaria ambigua) , 2010, Molecular ecology.

[25]  Jérôme Chave,et al.  Neutral theory and community ecology , 2004 .

[26]  S. Thomaz,et al.  Floods increase similarity among aquatic habitats in river-floodplain systems , 2007, Hydrobiologia.

[27]  Jonathan M. Chase,et al.  The metacommunity concept: a framework for multi-scale community ecology , 2004 .

[28]  N. Bonada,et al.  Small but mighty: headwaters are vital to stream network biodiversity at two levels of organization , 2011, Journal of the North American Benthological Society.

[29]  Sarah C. Goslee,et al.  The ecodist Package for Dissimilarity-based Analysis of Ecological Data , 2007 .

[30]  K. Gaston,et al.  THE LOCAL–REGIONAL RELATIONSHIP: IMMIGRATION, EXTINCTION, AND SCALE , 2005 .

[31]  Martin C. Thoms,et al.  Relationships between flow variability and macroinvertebrate assemblage composition: data from four Australian dryland rivers , 2006 .

[32]  M. White,et al.  Predicting Landscape-Genetic Consequences of Habitat Loss, Fragmentation and Mobility for Multiple Species of Woodland Birds , 2012, PloS one.

[33]  M. White,et al.  Species- and sex-specific connectivity effects of habitat fragmentation in a suite of woodland birds. , 2014, Ecology.

[34]  Keith F. Walker,et al.  A perspective on dryland river ecosystems , 1995 .

[35]  A. McIntosh,et al.  Do isolation and local habitat jointly limit the structure of stream invertebrate assemblages , 2013 .

[36]  M. Luoto,et al.  Distance decay of similarity in freshwater communities: do macro‐ and microorganisms follow the same rules? , 2012 .

[37]  Jay M Ver Hoef,et al.  A mixed-model moving-average approach to geostatistical modeling in stream networks. , 2010, Ecology.

[38]  Erin E. Peterson,et al.  A Moving Average Approach for Spatial Statistical Models of Stream Networks , 2010 .

[39]  A. Arthington,et al.  Ecological roles and threats to aquatic refugia in arid landscapes: dryland river waterholes , 2010 .

[40]  V. Devictor,et al.  Disentangling the role of connectivity, environmental filtering, and spatial structure on metacommunity dynamics , 2013 .

[41]  Gary A. Peterson,et al.  Soil Attribute Prediction Using Terrain Analysis , 1993 .

[42]  J. Heino.  A macroecological perspective of diversity patterns in the freshwater realm , 2011 .

[43]  C. Swan,et al.  Dendritic network structure constrains metacommunity properties in riverine ecosystems. , 2010, The Journal of animal ecology.