Fish and phytoplankton exhibit contrasting temporal species abundance patterns in a dynamic north temperate lake.

ABSTRACT: Temporal patterns of species abundance, although less well-studied than spatial patterns, provide valuable insight to the processes governing community assembly. We compared temporal abundance distributions of two communities, phytoplankton and fish, in a north temperate lake. We used both 17 years of observed relative abundance data as well as resampled data from Monte Carlo simulations to account for the possible effects of non-detection of rare species. Similar to what has been found in other communities, phytoplankton and fish species that appeared more frequently were generally more abundant than rare species. However, neither community exhibited two distinct groups of "core" (common occurrence and high abundance) and "occasional" (rare occurrence and low abundance) species. Both obse

SUBMITTER: Hansen GJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4317179 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature