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Context-dependent interactions and the regulation of species richness in freshwater fish
- Source :
- Nature Communications, Nature Communications, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 1-9 (2018)
- Publication Year :
- 2018
-
Abstract
- Species richness is regulated by a complex network of scale-dependent processes. This complexity can obscure the influence of limiting species interactions, making it difficult to determine if abiotic or biotic drivers are more predominant regulators of richness. Using integrative modeling of freshwater fish richness from 721 lakes along an 11o latitudinal gradient, we find negative interactions to be a relatively minor independent predictor of species richness in lakes despite the widespread presence of predators. Instead, interaction effects, when detectable among major functional groups and 231 species pairs, were strong, often positive, but contextually dependent on environment. These results are consistent with the idea that negative interactions internally structure lake communities but do not consistently ‘scale-up’ to regulate richness independently of the environment. The importance of environment for interaction outcomes and its role in the regulation of species richness highlights the potential sensitivity of fish communities to the environmental changes affecting lakes globally.<br />Species richness patterns are driven by biotic and abiotic factors, the relative strengths of which are unclear. Here, the authors test how species interactions or environmental traits influence fish richness across over 700 Canadian lakes, showing a surprisingly small role of negative interactions.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Science
Ecology (disciplines)
General Physics and Astronomy
Context (language use)
1600 General Chemistry
Interaction
Independent predictor
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Article
Predation
10127 Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies
1300 General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Animals
14. Life underwater
lcsh:Science
Abiotic component
Ekologi
Multidisciplinary
biology
Ecology
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
Fishes
General Chemistry
Biodiversity
15. Life on land
biology.organism_classification
6. Clean water
3100 General Physics and Astronomy
Lakes
13. Climate action
Freshwater fish
570 Life sciences
590 Animals (Zoology)
lcsh:Q
Species richness
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature Communications, Nature Communications, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 1-9 (2018)
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....f84e50c0e9872041848f8c9fda766460