Cross-community congruence of patterns in a marine ecosystem: Do the parts reflect the whole?

Abstract

Cross-community congruence patterns of species diversity metrics and community similarity between macrobenthic infauna, epibenthic megafauna, demersal fish and microzooplankton ciliates were studied in 6 areas in the Eastern Mediterranean. These species-rich communities, cooccurring in space and time, were intensively sampled during 2 cruises, in seasons reflecting different levels of subtle anthropogenic stress. Comparisons of patterns showed high positive correlation of similarities in community structure between macrofauna and megafauna, megafauna and fish and fish and microzooplankton. However, the employed diversity metrics varied between communities, occasionally showing negative correlations. We suggest that the species composition and diversity of these communities reflect different environmental gradients and sources of heterogeneity, and therefore none of them can be used as a surrogate for ecosystem biodiversity in the context of marine conservation planning.KEY WORDS: Macrofauna · Megafauna · Demersal fish · Microzooplankton · Diversity · Community structure Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherMar Ecol Prog Ser 310: [47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] 2006 diversity 'hotspots' between pairs of taxa is highly variable and may be dependent on the spatial scale examined (Su et al. 2004 and references therein). Few researchers have directly compared patterns of crosstaxon congruency in species richness and community composition, and most of the approaches used have not addressed the congruency of community composition or beta diversity per se (Lawton et al. 1998, MacNally et al. 2002, Su et al. 2004; further, all of them come from the terrestrial environment.According to Giller et al. (2004), when compared to terrestrial systems, aquatic ecosystems are characterised by greater propagule and material exchange, often steeper physical and chemical gradients, more rapid biological processes and, in marine systems, higher metazoan phylogenetic diversity. These characteristics limit the potential to transfer conclusions derived from terrestrial experiments to aquatic ecosystems, whilst they do provide opportunities for testing the general validity of hypotheses about effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning. Furthermore, at present there is a large difference between the spatial scales on which marine biodiversity mapping is possible and the scales at which management decisions need to be made (Olsgard et al. 2003). Authors of many papers discussing progress in research on spatial patterns in taxonomic diversity and/or effects of biodiversity on ecosystem function (e.g. Gaston & Williams 1996, Gray 2000, Hooper et al. 2005) have expressed their reservation as to whether the knowledge gained from the research in terrestrial ecosystems is also applicable to marine ecosystems.According to the definition of Krebs (2001), a community is 'any assemblage of populations of living organisms in a prescribed area or habitat'. However, the scientist rarely has th...

Congruence in demersal fish, macroinvertebrate, and macroalgal community turnover on shallow temperate reefs

“…First, we examined the efficacy of biological surrogacy for measuring compositional turnover rather than the more traditional measures of species richness. Second, in addition to comparing congruency patterns between assemblages in pointlocation biodiversity data (as presented in many marine studies to date; Beger et al 2003, Karakassis et al 2006, Sutcliffe et al 2012), we used point-location data combined with environmental data to model and predict spatially explicit turnover patterns. The consistency of the relationships between compositional turnover and environmental covariates for the fish, invertebrate, and macroalgal communities, and the resulting congruency in predicted biodiversity patterns, suggest that where the goal is broadscale prediction of biodiversity, data collection on only one taxonomic group will provide good representation of the biodiversity of other taxa.…”

Continental-scale patterns in benthic invertebrate diversity: insights from the MacroBen database

“…Latitudinal patterns have been less clear, but, in general, diversity of benthic communities or of component groups has been shown to decline with increasing latitude in the northern hemisphere (Rex et al 1993, Boucher & Lambshead 1995, Culver & Buzas 2000, Mokievsky & Azovsky 2002, Hillebrand 2004, Witman et al 2004, Renaud et al 2006. Other regional studies, however, have failed to detect this pattern or even showed regionally opposite trends (Heip et al 1992, Kendall & Aschan 1993, Dauvin et al 1994, Kendall 1996, Clarke & Lidgard 2000, Lambshead et al 2000, Ellingsen & Gray 2002, Rees et al 2007, and patterns in some taxonomic or trophic groups are not replicated in others (Azovsky 2000, Ellingsen 2001, Hillebrand 2004, Karakassis et al 2006.…”

Evaluating demersal fish richness as a surrogate for epibenthic richness in management and conservation

“…Karakassis et al . () found high positive correlation of similarities in community structure between macrofauna and megafauna and megafauna and fish, but low or even negative correlations for diversity. While our correlations were generally low, the highest correlations were frequently negative, the opposite of that required for a surrogate.…”

“…The lack of congruence between diversity patterns of demersal fish and epibenthos found in this study is consistent with other studies. While a number of studies have observed relationships between fish community composition and either epifaunal or infaunal communities (Karakassis et al ., ; Sell & Kröncke, ) or habitats (Kostylev & Hannah, ; Fisher et al ., ), the same is not true for diversity comparisons. Karakassis et al .…”