Ecological drivers of fish metacommunities: Environmental and spatial factors surpass predation in structuring metacommunities of intermittent rivers |
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| Authors: | Amanda Caroline Faustino de Queiroz Bianca de Freitas Terra |
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| Institution: | 1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Recursos Naturais, Departamento de Biologia, Centro de Ciências, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Campus do Pici, Fortaleza, Brazil;2. Curso de Ciências Biológicas, Centro de Ciências Agrárias e Biológicas, Universidade Estadual Vale do Acaraú, Campus da Betânia, Sobral, Brazil |
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| Abstract: | Metacommunity theory is a new approach for explaining how local and regional processes contribute to community organisation and integrative studies are needed to fully characterise the processes underlying its structure and function. We analysed, through variation partitioning and distance decay relationships, how metacommunities of fish in pools of intermittent rivers are structured by environmental, species interaction and spatial factors. The results indicate that both species sorting and dispersal limitation (spatial factors) were important in shaping fish metacommunities. Species sorting was the most influential driver within fish metacommunities, but predation was much less relevant and did not show any pure effect in metacommunity structure. However, environmental factors were determinant among metacommunity patches. |
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| Keywords: | biotic interactions dispersal limitation pools spatial scale species sorting |
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