Temporal dynamics of stream fish assemblages and the role of spatial scale in quantifying change.

ABSTRACT: Spatial grain of studies of communities is often based on arbitrary convention. Few studies have examined how spatial scaling of grain size affects estimates of compositional change over time, despite its broad implications.Fish assemblage structure was compared between 1974 and 2014 at 33 sampling locations in the Muddy Boggy River drainage, USA. The two main objectives for this comparison were to quantify change in assemblage structure and to test for a relationship between compositional change and spatial scale. Spatial scale was manipulated by pooling assemblage data into a continuous range of groups, which increased in size from K = 33 pairs (i.e., local scale) to K = 1 pair (i.e., global scale), via clustering algorithm based on pair-wise fluvial distance.Local assembla

SUBMITTER: Zbinden ZD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6988559 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature