Do the ecological drivers of lake littoral communities match and lead to congruence between organism groups?
Year of publication
2020
Authors
Tolonen, Kimmo T.; Karjalainen, Juha; Hämäläinen, Heikki; Nyholm, Kristiina; Rahkola-Sorsa, Minna; Cai, Yongjiu; Heino, Jani
Abstract
Lake littoral environments are heterogeneous, and different organisms typically show specific responses to this environmental variation. We examined local environmental and spatial factors affecting lake littoral biodiversity and the structuring of assemblages of phytoplankton, zooplankton and macroinvertebrates within and among three basins of a large lake system. We explored congruence of species composition and species richness among the studied organism groups to evaluate their general indicator potential to represent spatial variation in other groups. We expected that effects of water chemistry on plankton assemblages were stronger than effects of habitat characteristics. In contrast, we anticipated stronger effects of habitat on macroinvertebrates due to their mainly benthic mode of life. We also expected that within-basin spatial effects would be strongest on macroinvertebrates and weakest on phytoplankton. We predicted weak congruence in assemblage composition and species richness among the organism groups. Phytoplankton assemblages were mainly structured by the shared effects of water chemistry and large-scale spatial factors. In contrast to our expectations, habitat effects were stronger than water chemistry effects on zooplankton assemblages. However, as expected, macroinvertebrate species composition and richness were mainly affected by habitat conditions. Among-group congruence was weak for assemblage composition and insignificant for richness. Albeit weak, congruence was strongest between phytoplankton and zooplankton assemblages, as we expected. In summary, our analyses do not support the idea of using a single organism group as a wholesale biodiversity indicator.
Show moreOrganizations and authors
Publication type
Publication format
Article
Parent publication type
Journal
Article type
Original article
Audience
ScientificPeer-reviewed
Peer-ReviewedMINEDU's publication type classification code
A1 Journal article (refereed), original researchPublication channel information
Journal
Volume
54
Issue
3
Pages
839-854
ISSN
Publication forum
Publication forum level
1
Open access
Open access in the publisher’s service
Yes
Open access of publication channel
Partially open publication channel
Self-archived
Yes
Other information
Fields of science
Ecology, evolutionary biology
Keywords
[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]
Internationality of the publisher
International
Language
English
International co-publication
Yes
Co-publication with a company
No
DOI
10.1007/s10452-020-09781-x
The publication is included in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s Publication data collection
Yes