Abstract
Macrophyte assemblages are composed of species with different life forms and various ecological functions. Our aim was to investigate the potential environmental determinants of changes in the biomass of individual life forms and of the composition of the macrophyte assemblage in terms of life forms diversity. We sampled 23 waterbodies at low and high water levels in the Middle Paraná River floodplain. Macrophyte biomass samples were collected and classified in terms of life forms. We performed a redundancy analysis using the biomass of the various life forms to assess the importance of environmental variables to the composition of macrophyte life forms. Linear regressions were applied to investigate the environmental determinants of the biomasses of individual life forms. The degree of connectivity and the combination of depth, hydrology and nitrate were the main determinants of the composition in terms of life forms. The biomass of each individual life form was explained by different combinations of environmental variables, but the connectivity was the most important one. Our study shows that groups of species with similar life forms respond to environmental factors in particular ways, which might alter the biomass composition of life forms. Given that the ecosystem functioning depends on the functional characteristics of local communities, our findings about the relation between environmental changes and the community composition in terms of life forms (or functional composition) can be a helpful tool for predicting changes on ecosystem processes (such as nutrient cycling) against possible future scenarios.
Highlights
The world’s biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented speed (Díaz et al, 2006) mainly as a consequence of human changes of the global environment (Chapin et al, 2000)
Studies using the functional approach in the field of community ecology have usually focused on the relationships between abiotic factors and the richness and composition of macrophyte growth forms (e.g., Akasaka et al, 2010; Alahuhta and Heino, 2013; Alahuhta et al, 2013a; Alahuhta, 2015)
Our main results suggest that different morphometric, chemical and hydrological variables explain the variation in macrophyte life forms biomass and lead to changes in the life form composition across environmental gradients
Summary
The world’s biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented speed (Díaz et al, 2006) mainly as a consequence of human changes of the global environment (Chapin et al, 2000). Drivers of Macrophyte Life Forms Biomass forces structuring macrophyte communities (Junk et al, 1989; Padial et al, 2009; Bornette and Puijalon, 2011; Powell et al, 2014; Schneider et al, 2015; De Wilde et al, 2016; Riera et al, 2017) In these ecosystems, different life forms (e.g., emergent, rooted submerged, and free-floating) use resources (e.g., light and nutrients) in specific ways and differed in their response to environmental changes (Akasaka and Takamura, 2011; Netten et al, 2011; Alahuhta et al, 2013a). Changes in water quality can affect emergent macrophytes indirectly, for example, through organic matter sedimentation (Partanen et al, 2009)
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