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Complex interaction of dendritic connectivity and hierarchical patch size on biodiversity in river-like landscapes
- Source :
- American Naturalist, The American Naturalist, AMERICAN NATURALIST
- Publication Year :
- 2013
-
Abstract
- Habitat fragmentation and land use changes are causing major biodiversity losses. Connectivity of the landscape or environmental conditions alone can shape biodiversity patterns. In nature however local habitat characteristics are often intrinsically linked to a specific connectivity. Such a link is evident in riverine ecosystems where hierarchical dendritic structures command related scaling on habitat capacity. We experimentally disentangled the effect of local habitat capacity (i.e. the patch size) and dendritic connectivity on biodiversity in aquatic microcosm metacommunities by suitably arranging patch sizes within river like networks. Overall more connected communities that occupy a central position in the network exhibited higher species richness irrespective of patch size arrangement. High regional evenness in community composition was found only in landscapes preserving geomorphological scaling properties of patch sizes. In these landscapes some of the rarer species sustained regionally more abundant populations better tracking their own niche requirements compared to landscapes with homogeneous patch size or landscapes with spatially uncorrelated patch size. Our analysis suggests that altering the natural link between dendritic connectivity and patch size strongly affects community composition and population persistence at multiple scales. The experimental results are demonstrating a principle that can be tested in theoretical metacommunity models and eventually be projected to real riverine ecosystems. © 2013 by The University of Chicago.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Metacommunity
Conservation of Natural Resources
directional dispersal
Population
Rotifera
Biodiversity
Biology
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
riverine ecosystems
experimental microcosms
Rivers
Animals
14. Life underwater
Ciliophora
education
Ecosystem
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
dendritic ecological networks
education.field_of_study
Habitat fragmentation
Bacteria
Ecology
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
spatial heterogeneity
15. Life on land
Spatial heterogeneity
Habitat
community assembly
Species evenness
Species richness
Euglena
Subjects
Details
- Volume :
- 183
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- American Naturalist
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....ecaf45fd032cad74abd4d38bf9dbdccb
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1086/674009