Abstract
The processes underlying species’ dominance patterns and community composition are insufficiently investigated for springs, yet these systems, which are believed to be very stable environments, represent an important interface between aquatic and terrestrial habitats contributing significantly to local and regional diversity. We studied the dominance patterns and plant community composition of 238 springs in Central Europe. According to the conventional ecological belief we hypothesized (1) a positive relationship between local abundance and regional distribution of spring plant species, as well as between species commonness and species’ realized breadth and (2) the occurrence of oligarchic species similar to other stable environments like tropical forests. Based on previous studies on this springs, we furthermore hypothesized (3) that water pH—essentially a proxy for nutrient availability—is the major driver of spatial compositional dissimilarity, i.e. beta-diversity. We tested these three hypotheses by using species commonness estimates, realized niche space and generalized dissimilarity modelling based on hydrochemistry. In line with conventional wisdom, we report a positive relationship between local abundance, species commonness and regional distribution for the majority of the species. In contradiction to other systems, we found both specialist and generalist species to be locally dominant and regionally widespread, thus common, while species with intermediate niche breadth showed the lowest commonness values. However, we detected three oligarchic species, exceeding all other species in local abundance and regional distribution, which did not follow these relationships. Both dominance relations (oligarchy) and community composition were mainly driven by water temperature and concentration of elements related to acidity regime (Al, Cd, Ca and Mg), although much of the variation in both remained unexplained. Thus, further research should focus on biotic interactions, which are likely to be important drivers of plant community composition in springs.
Highlights
The organisation of ecological communities and ecosystems has been a central topic in ecology and biogeography for decades (Brown 1984, Condit et al 2002, Legendre et al 2005)
We focus on two research questions: (1) How are these spring plant communities organized in terms of species’ local abundance and regional distribution? (2) What are the major environmental drivers of compositional dissimilarity and beta diversity patterns in these systems?
We found that oligarchic species, often associated with environmentally stable ecosystems like tropical forests (Arenallo et al 2013, Pitman et al 2001, 2013), characterize Central European spring plant communities
Summary
The organisation of ecological communities and ecosystems has been a central topic in ecology and biogeography for decades (Brown 1984, Condit et al 2002, Legendre et al 2005). The realized niche of a given species is defined as a set of abiotic as well as biotic environmental parameters, which enable or limit the survival and reproduction of the species (Hutchinson 1957) Spatial variation in both abiotic conditions (e.g., climate or geology) and biotic conditions (including interspecific differences in dispersal ability, competitive strength and historical effects), drives patterns of compositional dissimilarity within a given type of ecosystem (Condit et al 2002). Community composition and beta-diversity patterns have been popular subjects for ecologists and biogeographers for more than three decades, underlying processes and environmental drivers are still not entirely understood, and have been insufficiently investigated, in particular for less ‘popular’ systems like springs Despite their importance for clean water supply and local as well as regional biodiversity, springs are underrepresented in ecological research (Cantonati et al 2012a,b). Based on previous studies about abiotic drivers of plant community composition (Audorff et al 2011), we hypothesized that water pH (essentially a proxy for nutrient availability) is the major driver of spatial compositional dissimilarity
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