2 research outputs found
Environmental filtering determines community patterns in temporary wetlands: a multi-taxon approach
14 páginas, 8 tablas, 3 figuras.Climate characteristics appear to play a key
role in filtering organisms based on their biological traits.
If this trait filtering by climate indeed occurs, it should
have effects on the composition, dynamics, taxonomic
relatedness and co-occurrence patterns of local assemblages,
regardless of the taxonomic group considered.
This preliminary study aimed to assess the extent to
which environmental variables might determine these
patterns in local communities and to evaluate whether the
ultimate cross-taxon congruence relationships are consistent
across, or dependent on, the selected region. To
this end, we studied the bryophyte, macrophyte, macroinvertebrate,
and amphibian communities in two
clusters of temporary wetlands on the NE Iberian
Peninsula under mesothermal and semiarid climates.
We observed effects of environmental filtering, with the
communities differing between the climatic regions not
only in their compositions but also in their dynamics and
taxonomic relatedness patterns. Although the cross-taxon
congruence in terms of species richness was high in the
mesothermal climate, most of the congruent relationships
were disrupted in the semiarid environment. Overall,
because climate-dependent patterns appear to prevail
over climate-consistent ones, we suggest that the use of
surrogate taxa may be of limited value when aiming to
assess wetland biodiversity across large areas.This study was supported by a Scientific
Research grant (CGL2011-23907) from the Spanish Ministry of
Science and Innovation. Albert Ruhı´ held a FPU PhD grant from
the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (AP2006-
00807), and Eglantine Chappuis was supported by an I3P
fellowship from the Spanish National Research Council and the
Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.Peer reviewe