First reports of short-term temporal variations in crustacean species richness in north Patagonian coastal temporary pools

Patricio De Los Ríos-Escalante,Francisco Correa-Araneda,Eriko Carreño,Francisco Encina-Montoya,Carlos Esse

doi:10.1590/2358-2936e2021020

Patricio De Los Ríos-Escalante, Francisco Correa-Araneda + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/2358-2936e2021020

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Abstract

Abstract Temporary pools are freshwater bodies of significant interest due to their high species diversity, and the colonization and extinction processes observed at temporal scales. The aim of the present study was to perform a short-term ecological comparison in a group of shallow temporary pools in northern Chilean Patagonia in two periods, August and September 2018. The results revealed marked differences in terms of species richness in the study pools at different conductivities and chlorophyll a concentrations. The dominant species was the calanoid copepod Boeckella gracilis Daday, 1902, while the presence of the rare Anostracan Branchinecta rocaensis Cohen, 1982 was reported in conditions of low chlorophyll a and low conductivity. The community was studied using co-occurrence null models that revealed the absence of structured patterns in species associations, and the presence of niche overlap, with many repeated species that have a similar ecological niche. The present results are identical with observations from temporary pools in southern Chilean Patagonia.

Highlights

Temporary pools are interesting ecosystems due to their high species richness (Spencer et al, 1999; Schwartz and Jenkins, 2000), and to the population mechanisms involved in these ecosystems, local colonization and extinction processes (Eitam et al, 2004a; 2004b)
Conductivity and total dissolved solids were measured in situ using a Hanna sensor HI98130; chlorophyll a was measured in the laboratory using acetone pigment extraction (Strickland and Parsons, 1972), and zooplankton was collected by filtering a volume of 10 L with a screen of 100 μm mesh size
The results denoted the low number of species in the study pools. This is similar to observations of shallow temporary pools in central Patagonia caused by snow melting during late winter and early spring, i.e., between August and October (De los Ríos et al, 2018)

Summary

Introduction

Temporary pools are interesting ecosystems due to their high species richness (Spencer et al, 1999; Schwartz and Jenkins, 2000), and to the population mechanisms involved in these ecosystems, local colonization and extinction processes (Eitam et al, 2004a; 2004b). They have high alpha diversity because many of the species that inhabit them produce diapause eggs, with high dispersion and colonization abilities (Schwartz and Jenkins, 2000; Alekseev, 2007a; 2007b; Alekseev et al, 2007; Meland et al, 2019; Raza and Sharip, 2019; Sun et al, 2019) These ecosystems are important for the study of conservation procedures (Eitam et al, 2004a; 2004b) because interactions occur with associated fauna, for example aquatic birds that use the pools for nesting and feeding, and the presence of these birds enhances the dispersion capacity of dormant eggs (Green et al, 2005)

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