Abstract
The abiotic environment has strong influences on the growth, survival, behavior, and ecology of aquatic organisms. Biotic interactions and species life histories interact with abiotic factors to structure the food web. One measure of food-web structure is food-chain length. Several hypotheses predict a linear relationship between one environmental variable (e.g., disturbance or ecosystem size) and food-chain length. However, many abiotic and biotic variables interact in diverse ways to structure a community, and may affect other measures of food web structure besides food-chain length. This study took a multivariate approach to test the influence of several important environmental variables on four food-web characteristics measured in nine ponds along a hydroperiod gradient over two years. This approach allowed for testing the ecosystem size and dynamic constraints hypotheses while in context of other possibly interacting environmental variables. The relationship between amphibian and invertebrate communities and pond habitat variables was assessed to understand the underlying food-web structure. Hydroperiod and pond area had a strong influence on amphibian and invertebrate communities, trophic diversity and δ15N range. The range in δ13C values responded strongly to dissolved oxygen. Food-chain length responded to multiple environmental variables. Invertebrate and amphibian communities were structured by pond hydroperiod which in turn influenced the trophic diversity of the food web. The results of this study suggest food-chain length is influenced by environmental variation and species assemblage and that a multivariate approach may allow us to better understand the dynamics within and across aquatic food webs.
Highlights
Temporary waters are abundant, diverse in physical, chemical, and biological characteristics, and are located throughout the world [1]
In both years the redundancy analysis (RDA) models indicated that high amounts of variation in food-web structure could be explained by the environmental predictors (68% and 52%, respectively)
Trophic diversity was strongly influenced by hydroperiod which is validated by the greater number of invertebrate taxa on the right half of the Correspondence Analysis (CCA) ordination (Fig 2A)
Summary
Diverse in physical, chemical, and biological characteristics, and are located throughout the world [1]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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