Abstract
Beta diversity can be portioned into local contributions to beta diversity (LCBD), which represents the degree of community composition uniqueness of a site compared to regionally sampled sites. LCBD can fluctuate among seasons and ecoregions according to site characteristics, species dispersal abilities, and biotic interactions. In this context, we examined anuran seasonal patterns of LCBD in different ecoregions of Western Brazil, and assessed their correlation with species richness and if environmental (climatic variables, pond area and ecoregions) and/or spatial predictors (spatial configuration of sampling sites captured by distance-based Moran's Eigenvector Maps) would drive patterns of LCBD. We sampled anurans in 19 ponds in different ecoregions in the Mato Grosso do Sul state, Western Brazil, during one dry and one rainy season. We found that LCBD patterns were similar between seasons with sites tending to contribute in the same way for community composition uniqueness during the dry and rainy season. Among studied ecoregions, Cerrado showed higher LCBD values in both seasons. In addition, LCBD was negatively correlated with species richness in the dry season. We also found that LCBD variation was explained by ecoregion in the dry season, but in the rainy season both environmental and spatial global models were non-significant. Our results reinforce the compositional uniqueness of the Cerrado ecoregion when compared to the other ecoregions in both seasons, which may be caused by the presence of species with different requirements that tolerate different conditions caused by seasonality.
Highlights
Understanding the organization of species diversity through space and time is one of the main scopes of community ecology [1]
local contributions to beta diversity (LCBD) was negatively correlated with species richness in the dry season (Pearson correlation = -0.46, p = 0.04) (S2 Fig)
The pattern of higher LCBD in Cerrado sites was maintained in the rainy season (Fig 3)
Summary
Understanding the organization of species diversity through space and time is one of the main scopes of community ecology [1]. The midwestern Brazil location has a highly seasonal variation in environmental conditions in the Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, Chaco and, Pantanal ecoregions This region allows us to explore seasonal patterns of compositional uniqueness and compare the relative importance of the potential mechanisms explaining those patterns. The Chaco region is close to the Pantanal and both occupy the area under influence of Paraguay Basin flood pulses, which would provide water to anuran reproduction throughout the year In this way, we expected that the Cerrado ecoregion would have higher values of LCBD compared to other ecoregions in the dry season. We hypothesized that LCBD variation would be driven by environmental variables in the dry and rainy seasons, but the total amount of variation would be higher in the dry season
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