Abstract
There has been increasing interest in algae‐based bioassessment, particularly, trait‐based approaches are increasingly suggested. However, the main drivers, especially the contribution of hydrological variables, of species composition, trait composition, and beta diversity of algae communities are less studied. To link species and trait composition to multiple factors (i.e., hydrological variables, local environmental variables, and spatial factors) that potentially control species occurrence/abundance and to determine their relative roles in shaping species composition, trait composition, and beta diversities of pelagic algae communities, samples were collected from a German lowland catchment, where a well‐proven ecohydrological modeling enabled to predict long‐term discharges at each sampling site. Both trait and species composition showed significant correlations with hydrological, environmental, and spatial variables, and variation partitioning revealed that the hydrological and local environmental variables outperformed spatial variables. A higher variation of trait composition (57.0%) than species composition (37.5%) could be explained by abiotic factors. Mantel tests showed that both species and trait‐based beta diversities were mostly related to hydrological and environmental heterogeneity with hydrological contributing more than environmental variables, while purely spatial impact was less important. Our findings revealed the relative importance of hydrological variables in shaping pelagic algae community and their spatial patterns of beta diversities, emphasizing the need to include hydrological variables in long‐term biomonitoring campaigns and biodiversity conservation or restoration. A key implication for biodiversity conservation was that maintaining the instream flow regime and keeping various habitats among rivers are of vital importance. However, further investigations at multispatial and temporal scales are greatly needed.
Highlights
Rivers cover only 0.8% of the landmasses on the earth, they contain more than 6% of global species and are invaluable for biodiversity and ecosystem services (Altermatt, Seymour, & Martinez, 2013)
A previous study on the relations among 83 hydro‐ logical metrics and changes in algal communities of the United States was consistent with our study and demonstrated the importance of hydrological variables to the variance of specific algal community met‐ rics (Steuer, Stensvold, & Gregory, 2010)
Recent studies (Qu et al, 2018; Wu et al, 2016), which were in line with our find‐ ing, found that hydrological conditions played an important role in temporal variations of pelagic algae communities
Summary
Rivers cover only 0.8% of the landmasses on the earth, they contain more than 6% of global species and are invaluable for biodiversity and ecosystem services (Altermatt, Seymour, & Martinez, 2013). As the major primary pro‐ ducer, algae are increasingly being used as reliable environmental indi‐ cators in streams and rivers globally, especially in the context of recent international water framework directive policies such as EU Water Framework Directive (WFD; Hering et al, 2006; Lange, Townsend, & Matthaei, 2016; Wu et al, 2017) because they strongly respond to en‐ vironmental changes (Larras et al, 2017; Stevenson, Pan, & van Dam, 2010; Wang, Li, et al, 2016). A profound understanding on the inter‐ action of hydrological variables and river organisms, algae, is still missing
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