Abstract
Seasonally inundated wetlands contribute to biodiversity support and ecosystem function at the landscape scale. These temporally dynamic ecosystems contain unique assemblages of animals adapted to cyclically wet–dry habitats. As a result of the high variation in environmental conditions, wetlands serve as hotspots for animal movement and potentially hotspots of biogeochemical activity and migratory transport of nutrient subsidies. Most amphibians are semi-aquatic and migrate between isolated wetlands and the surrounding terrestrial system to complete their life cycle, with rainfall and other environmental factors affecting the timing and magnitude of wetland export of juveniles. Here we used a long-term drift fence study coupled with system-specific nutrient content data of amphibians from two small wetlands in southeastern Georgia, USA. We couple environmental data with count data of juveniles exiting wetlands to explore the controls of amphibian diversity, production and export and the amphibian life-history traits associated with export over varying environmental conditions. Our results highlight the high degree of spatial and temporal variability in amphibian flux with hydroperiod length and temperature driving community composition and overall biomass and nutrient fluxes. Additionally, specific life-history traits, such as development time and body size, were associated with longer hydroperiods. Our findings underscore the key role of small, isolated wetlands and their hydroperiod characteristics in maintaining amphibian productivity and community dynamics.
Highlights
Isolated, seasonally inundated wetlands support biodiversity at a landscape scale [1,2]
As a result of the high variation in environmental conditions and resulting movement of many animals across ecosystem boundaries, wetlands serve as hotspots for animal movement and potentially hotspots of biogeochemical activity and migratory transport of nutrient subsidies [5,14,15]
We documented high temporal variability of amphibian export and community composition in small, isolated wetlands that could partly be explained by hydroperiod and life-history traits
Summary
Seasonally inundated wetlands support biodiversity at a landscape scale [1,2] These small, but often abundant wetlands are increasingly recognized for their contributions to landscape functions, including exchange of energy, materials, and organisms across ecosystem boundaries [3,4,5]. Inundated wetlands contain unique assemblages of species adapted to the rapidly changing conditions of these cyclically wet–dry habitats [6,7,8] and these species use various mechanisms to persist when wetlands dry. Even at fine spatial and temporal scales, the movement of animals across habitat boundaries can provide substantial nutrient subsidies, playing an important role in ecosystem functioning [23,24,25]
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