Spatial patterns reveal strong abiotic and biotic drivers of zooplankton community composition in Lake Mývatn, Iceland

Bartrons, Mireia; Einarsson, Árni; Nobre, Regina L. G.; Herren, Cristina M.; Webert, Kyle C.; Brucet, Sandra; Ólafsdóttir, Sólveig Rósa; Ives, Anthony R.

doi:10.1890/es14-00392.1

Cited by 23 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…The spatial pattern of the bloom roughly matched that from 2011 (Bartrons et al 2015) and 2016-2017 (unpublished data) based on measurement of cyanobacterial pigments and cell counts. The parameter values were based on the estimates associated with the final model as determined through the model selection procedure (terms that were not included in the final model were set to 0).…”

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 64%

“…M yvatn is spring-fed and has substantial lateral water flow even on days with low wind, so there was likely significant exchange between the ❖ www.esajournals.org mesocosms and overlying water (Bartrons et al 2015). M yvatn is spring-fed and has substantial lateral water flow even on days with low wind, so there was likely significant exchange between the ❖ www.esajournals.org mesocosms and overlying water (Bartrons et al 2015).…”

Section: Experimental Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spatiotemporal variation in the sign and magnitude of ecosystem engineer effects on lake ecosystem production

et al. 2019

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Ecosystem engineers can have diverse and conflicting effects on their ecosystems, and the balance between these effects can depend on the physical environment. This context dependence means that environmental variation can produce large differences in engineer effects through space and time. Here, we explore how local variability in environmental conditions can lead to large spatiotemporal variation in the effect of tube-building midges on benthic ecosystem metabolism in a shallow subarctic lake. Using field experiments, we found that midge engineering increases both gross primary production (GPP) and respiration (RESP) in the sediment. Gross primary production and RESP have opposing influences on net ecosystem production, and the net effect of midges on the benthic ecosystem depends on the balance between their effects on GPP and RESP. Variation in light mediates this balance-under high light conditions, primary producers are able to exploit the structural benefits provided by midges, while in the dark, the elevation of respiration from midge engineering predominates. Benthic light levels vary spatially and temporally due to episodic cyanobacterial blooms that prevent almost all light from reaching the benthos. By quantifying the nonlinear relationship between midge engineering and light, we were able to project ecosystem-wide consequences of natural variation in light conditions across the lake. Our results illustrate how the sign and magnitude of ecosystem-wide effects of ecosystem engineers can vary through space and time.

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Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 64%

Section: Experimental Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal variation in the sign and magnitude of ecosystem engineer effects on lake ecosystem production

et al. 2019

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“…In the MLMs, the standardised cell counts of algal groups were regressed against fixed effects of N and P concentrations. The first MLM had random effects that allowed different responses to N and P enrichment for each algal group (Bartrons et al, 2015;Jackson, Turner, Pearson, & Ives, 2012) and a random effect for each microcosm. Significant variation in taxa-specific responses to nutrient treatments implies shifts in community composition (Jackson et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of benthic algae to nutrient enrichment in a shallow lake: Linking community production, biomass, and composition

2019

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Understanding how nutrient limitation affects algal biomass and production is a long‐standing interest in aquatic ecology. Nutrients can influence these whole‐community characteristics through several mechanisms, including shifting community composition. Therefore, incorporating the joint responses of biomass, taxonomic composition, and production of algal communities, and relationships among them, is important for understanding effects of nutrient enrichment. In shallow subarctic Lake Mývatn, Iceland, benthic algae compose a majority of whole‐lake primary production, support high secondary production, and influence nutrient cycling. Given the importance of these ecosystem processes, the factors that limit benthic algae have a large effect on the function and dynamics of the Mývatn system. In a 33‐day nutrient enrichment experiment conducted in Lake Mývatn, we measured the joint responses of benthic algal biomass, primary production, and composition to nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) supplementation. We enriched N and P using nutrient‐diffusing agar overlain by sediment, with three levels of N and P that were crossed in a factorial design. We found little evidence of community‐wide nutrient limitation, as chlorophyll‐a concentrations showed a negligible response to nutrients. Gross primary production (GPP) was unaffected by P and inhibited by N enrichment after 10 days, although the inhibitory effect of N diminished by day 33. In contrast to biomass and primary production, community composition was strongly affected by N and marginally affected by P, with some algal groups increasing and others decreasing with enrichment. The taxa with the most negative and positive responses to N enrichment were Fragilariaceae and Scenedesmus, respectively. The abundances of particular algal groups, based on standardised cell counts, were related to GPP measured at the end of the experiment. Oocystis was negatively associated with GPP but was unaffected by N or P, while Fragilariaceae and Scenedesmus were positively associated with GPP but had opposite responses to N. As a result, nutrient‐induced compositional shifts did not alter GPP. Overall, our results show that nutrient enrichment can have large effects on algal community composition while having little effect on total biomass and primary production. Our study suggests that nutrient‐driven compositional shifts may not alter the overall ecological function of algal communities if (1) taxa have contrasting responses to nutrient enrichment but have similar effects on ecological processes, and/or (2) taxa that have strong influences on ecological function are not strongly affected by nutrients.

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“…Here, we show how linear mixed models with temporal autocorrelation can be used to quantify community responses to environmental variation from replicated time series. The approach extends the previous use of mixed models for estimating taxon- and community-level responses to environmental variation (Jackson et al 2012, Bartrons et al 2015) by incorporating temporal autocorrelation with group-specific values for the autoregressive parameter. While our model formulation accounted for space using linear trends (due to the nature of the example data), the method could be extended to explicitly include spatial autocorrelation when appropriate (similar to Bartrons et al 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Quantifying community responses to environmental variation from replicate time series

Phillips

Nell

Botsch

2021

Preprint

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Time-series data for ecological communities are increasingly available from long-term studies designed to track species responses to environmental change. However, classical multivariate methods for analyzing community composition have limited applicability for time series, as they do not account for temporal autocorrelation in community-member abundances. Furthermore, traditional approaches often obscure the connections between responses at the community level and those for individual taxa, limiting their capacity to infer mechanisms of community change. We show how linear mixed models that account for group-specific temporal autocorrelation and observation error can be used to infer both taxon- and community-level responses to environmental predictors from replicated time-series data. Variation in taxon-specific responses to predictors is modeled using random effects, which can be used to characterize variation in community composition. Moreover, the degree of autocorrelation is estimated separately for each taxon, since this is likely to vary due to differences in their underlying population dynamics. We illustrate the utility of the approach by analyzing the response of a predatory arthropod community to spatiotemporal variation in allochthonous resources in a subarctic landscape. Our results show how mixed models with temporal autocorrelation provide a unified approach to characterizing taxon- and community-level responses to environmental variation through time.

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Spatial patterns reveal strong abiotic and biotic drivers of zooplankton community composition in Lake Mývatn, Iceland

Cited by 23 publications

References 74 publications

Spatiotemporal variation in the sign and magnitude of ecosystem engineer effects on lake ecosystem production

Spatiotemporal variation in the sign and magnitude of ecosystem engineer effects on lake ecosystem production

Responses of benthic algae to nutrient enrichment in a shallow lake: Linking community production, biomass, and composition

Quantifying community responses to environmental variation from replicate time series

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