Do priority effects outweigh environmental filtering in a guild of dominant freshwater macroinvertebrates?

ABSTRACT: Abiotic conditions have long been considered essential in structuring freshwater macroinvertebrate communities. Ecological drift, dispersal and biotic interactions also structure communities, and although these mechanisms are more difficult to detect, they may be of equal importance in natural communities. Here, we hypothesized that in 10 naturally replicated headwater streams in eastern Switzerland, locally dominant amphipod species would be associated with differences in environmental conditions. We conducted repeated surveys of amphipods and used a hierarchical joint species distribution model to assess the influence of different drivers on species co-occurrences. The species had unique environmental requirements, but a distinct spatial structure in their distributions was unrelated to

SUBMITTER: Little CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5904319 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature