Fine-scale environmental gradients formed by local pollutants largely impact zooplankton communities in running water ecosystems

H Peng,W Xiong,A Zhan

doi:10.3354/ab00695

Abstract

Fine-scale environmental gradients formed by local pollutants largely impact zooplankton communities in running water ecosystems

Highlights

Freshwater ecosystems are suffering increasingly from multiple interacting environmental stressors derived from intensive anthropogenic activities, leading to catastrophic impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning globally (Sandin & Solimini 2009, Woodward 2009, Xiong et al 2018)
We detected a significant environmental gradient along the direction of water flow, and the whole river was divided into 3 regions (I−III) based on Non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination (NMDS) analysis of environmental factors (Stress = 0.12; Fig. 2)
Multiple analyses including variance partitioning and redundancy analysis (RDA) clearly showed that species sorting prevailed to determine zooplankton community structure and geographical distribution at fine scales in Fuyang River, supporting the fine-scale species sorting hypothesis proposed by Xiong et al (2017)

Summary

Introduction

Freshwater ecosystems are suffering increasingly from multiple interacting environmental stressors derived from intensive anthropogenic activities, leading to catastrophic impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning globally (Sandin & Solimini 2009, Woodward 2009, Xiong et al 2018). Aquat Biol 27: 43–53, 2018 tems has been well documented in the published literature, we still have limited knowledge on the responsible mechanisms, such as how environmental stressors derived from intensive anthropogenic activities alter ecosystems, chemical pollution in river ecosystems (Xiong et al 2016a, 2017). Local factors, including abiotic and biotic interactions with existing species, largely filter the species based on habitat suitability to determine community composition, leading to varied community structure in different habitats (Duggan et al 2002). Dispersal, which is based on a neutral and random process (Hubbell 2001), homogenizes the geographical distribution of species irrespective of environmental conditions, obscuring the function of species sorting

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Discussion

Conclusion