Effect of shade and shading history on species abundances and ecosystem processes in temporary ponds

Abstract

Summary1. The amount of sunlight that an ecosystem receives is an important determinant of primary productivity, which in turn can influence species diversity and nutrient cycling. Here, we examine the effects of shading and shading history on ecosystem processes, macroinvertebrate diversity and development of dominant ecosystem states in field‐based aquatic mesocosms.2. We found that there were large effects of the level of shade, but few effects of shading history. Increasing light increased the biomass of filamentous algae (metaphyton) which increased the overall productivity of the ecosystem, and shifted the invertebrate community from one with more mosquitoes (filter feeders) to one with more anuran tadpoles (algal grazers).3. There was also an effect of shading history, where increased shade led to changes in the macroinvertebrate communities that were maintained after shade was reduced in the later part of the experiment.4. Finally, our results indicated that correlations between ecosystem processes, specific key macrofauna and the development of pond ecosystem states were greater than correlations of these factors to shading treatments. These results suggest that the history of community assembly can have a greater impact on the development of ecosystem processes than diminishing light by as much as 50%. However, light may have a potentially strong indirect effect and may impact the communities through altered bottom‐up structuring forces.