Dispersal-mediated trophic interactions can generate apparent patterns of dispersal limitation in aquatic metacommunities

Ecology Letters (2012) Dispersal is a major organising force in metacommunities, which may facilitate compositional responses of local communities to environmental change and affect ecosystem function. Organism groups differ widely in their dispersal abilities and their communities are therefore exp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2012-03, Vol.15 (3), p.218-226
Main Authors: Verreydt, Dino, De Meester, Luc, Decaestecker, Ellen, Villena, María-José, Van Der Gucht, Katleen, Vannormelingen, Pieter, Vyverman, Wim, Declerck, Steven A.J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Aquatic ecosystems
Bacteria
Bacterioplankton
Biogeography
Biological and medical sciences
Body Size
Chlorophyll - analysis
dispersal
Ecosystem
ecosystem function
Food chains
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General aspects
indirect effects
Lakes
metacommunity
Phytoplankton
Plankton
Population Dynamics
productivity
species sorting
trophic cascade
Zooplankton
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Summary:Ecology Letters (2012) Dispersal is a major organising force in metacommunities, which may facilitate compositional responses of local communities to environmental change and affect ecosystem function. Organism groups differ widely in their dispersal abilities and their communities are therefore expected to have different adaptive abilities. In mesocosms, we studied the simultaneous compositional response of three plankton communities (zoo‐, phyto‐ and bacterioplankton) to a primary productivity gradient and evaluated how this response was mediated by dispersal intensity. Dispersal enhanced responses in all three planktonic groups, which also affected ecosystem functioning. Yet, variation partitioning analyses indicated that responses in phytoplankton and bacterial communities were not only controlled by dispersal directly but also indirectly through complex trophic interactions. Our results indicate that metacommunity patterns emerging from dispersal can cascade through the food web and generate patterns of apparent dispersal limitation in organisms at other trophic levels.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01728.x