Patterns of abundance and co-occurrence in aquatic plant communities

Aquatic plants are well suited as subjects for studies on the distribution and abundance of co-occurring species, especially due to the simple structure of their communities, well defined toposequences and relatively easily measurable environmental factors. Here we show that underwater plants occurr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecological research 2013-05, Vol.28 (3), p.387-395
Main Authors: Chmara, Rafał, Szmeja, Józef, Ulrich, Werner
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Aquatic ecosystems
Aquatic plants
Behavioral Sciences
Biological and medical sciences
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Community ecology
Community structure
Ecology
Environmental factors
Evolutionary Biology
Forestry
Fresh water ecosystems
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Lakes
Life Sciences
Modular community structure
Original Article
Plant communities
Plant populations
Plant Sciences
Satellite species
Species abundance distributions
Species co‐occurrence
Species dispersal dynamics
Species richness
Synecology
Underwater
Water depth
Zonation
Zoology
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Summary:Aquatic plants are well suited as subjects for studies on the distribution and abundance of co-occurring species, especially due to the simple structure of their communities, well defined toposequences and relatively easily measurable environmental factors. Here we show that underwater plants occurring in semi-natural lakes form stable communities, where species interactions dominate over dispersal dynamics to form a modular community structure with a high degree of zonation (turnover) and low within-module species richness. In turn, human-induced disturbance largely destroyed the modular structure. Our results indicate that (1) species abundance distributions (SADs) of underwater plant communities are well described by the lognormal model; (2) environmental characters did not significantly influence the SADs of underwater plant communities; (3) log-series SADs do not indicate specific types of community organization; (4) in our lake communities only few satellites (tourists) occur; (5) the co-occurrence of species is highly dependent on the turnover across lakes and water depth zones; and (6) species zonation is a function of lake properties.
ISSN:0912-3814
1440-1703
DOI:10.1007/s11284-013-1028-y