Environmental factors driving phytoplankton taxonomic and functional diversity in Amazonian floodplain lakes

Understanding how species are structured in space and time and how they are functionally related to environmental conditions is still a challenge in ecology. In this study, we assessed the predictive power of lake morphometry, physical and chemical conditions of the water, and zooplankton density in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Hydrobiologia 2017-11, Vol.802 (1), p.115-130
Main Authors: Cardoso, Simone J., Nabout, João Carlos, Farjalla, Vinicius F., Lopes, Paloma M., Bozelli, Reinaldo L., Huszar, Vera L. M., Roland, Fábio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biodiversity
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Ecological monitoring
Ecology
Environmental conditions
Environmental factors
Eukaryotes
Euphotic zone
Floodplains
Freshwater & Marine Ecology
Lake morphometry
Lakes
Life Sciences
Mathematical models
Morphometry
Phosphorus
Phytoplankton
Primary Research Paper
Species diversity
Species richness
Taxonomy
Water
Water depth
Zoology
Zooplankton
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Summary:Understanding how species are structured in space and time and how they are functionally related to environmental conditions is still a challenge in ecology. In this study, we assessed the predictive power of lake morphometry, physical and chemical conditions of the water, and zooplankton density in relation to phytoplankton taxonomic and functional diversity in Amazonian floodplain lakes during low- and high-water periods. We also examined to what extent taxonomic and functional indexes were coupled. Taxonomic diversity was evaluated by species richness and Shannon index, and functional diversity by functional richness (FRic) and community-weighted mean trait value (CWM). The relative importance of predictive factors was evaluated by model selection, multi-model inference and correlations. We found that phytoplankton taxonomic and functional diversity indexes were mostly related to the same factors within the low- and high-water periods. Total phosphorus was the main driving factor in the low water, while euphotic zone depth and zooplankton density were the main driving factors in the high water. Taxonomic and functional diversity indexes were weakly coupled in the low water, but strongly coupled in the high water. Our results highlight that phytoplankton taxonomic and functional diversity can differ between periods, but respond similarly to environmental driving factors.
ISSN:0018-8158
1573-5117
DOI:10.1007/s10750-017-3244-x