Nested structure of plankton communities from Chilean freshwaters

Ramos-Jiliberto, R; Oyanedel, JP; Vega-Retter, C; Valdovinos, FS

Abstract

1.Nestedness has been recognized as a characteristic pattern of community organization. In a nested metacommunity, species-poor sites are proper subsets of relatively richer sites, implying that the conservation of many poor habitats can be ineffective.2.Here we compiled the last 30 years of published limnological research on Chilean lakes, in order to determine whether or not species distribution of freshwater plankton communities exhibit a nested structure, and which habitat features best explain the observed biogeographic order.3.We built presence-absence matrices for diatoms, green algae, blue-green algae, cladocerans, copepods, rotifers, as well as for the grouped phytoplankton and zooplankton. For each matrix, we calculated their degree of nestedness and tested whether or not they differ from matrices assembled according to two alternative null models. From nestedness results, we identified a minimal set of lakes that contain 75% of the regional species pool. After that, we evaluated whether nestedness is maintained when the community structure is organized according to latitude, altitude, area and isolation of lakes.4.Our analyses reveal that total phytoplankton, total zooplankton, as well as diatom, cladoceran, copepod, and rotifer assemblages of Chilean lakes are not randomly assembled but highly nested. Conversely, green and blue-green algae did not show a clear nested structure. A few sites (3-5) ranked by nestedness for each taxonomic group, covered 75% of the species pool. Finally, we found that surface area and isolation of lakes were the two variables more likely to affect nestedness. © 2009 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Más información

Título según WOS: Nested structure of plankton communities from Chilean freshwaters
Título según SCOPUS: Nested structure of plankton communities from Chilean freshwaters
Título de la Revista: LIMNOLOGICA
Volumen: 39
Número: 4
Editorial: Elsevier GmbH
Fecha de publicación: 2009
Página de inicio: 319
Página final: 324
Idioma: English
URL: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0075951109000292
DOI:

10.1016/j.limno.2009.06.005

Notas: ISI, SCOPUS