SFS Annual Meeting

5/23/2019  |   09:00 - 09:15   |  151 G

USING MODELING AND TRAIT DATA TO UNDERSTAND METACOMMUNITY CONNECTIVITY Dispersal is one of the major factors influencing metacommunity dynamics. In rivers, dispersal can be accomplished via different modes: benthic crawling , swimming/drifting, and aerial movement. Each of these dispersal modes potentially interacts with watershed features in different ways. We analyze a full life-cycle model of an aquatic organism to explore how dispersal traits, watershed geometry, and the surrounding terrestrial landscape interact to influence connectivity among local communities. Simulation-based approach allows our model to represent complex life-cycles and behavioral responses to environmental features such as elevation and land cover. Using data from benthic macroinvertebrates in California, we establish patterns of trait syndromes and parameterize the model for each of these. We found that highly resolved California taxa could be grouped into a set of nine clusters based on shared traits. Models parameterized for these clusters exhibited different responses to watershed geometry and had different sensitivities of these responses to complex movement behavior. Additional analyses allow us to simplify model outputs to estimate “dispersal kernels” that can be used as inputs for highly speciose metacommunity models, linking individual-level dispersal responses to metacommunity outcomes.

Kurt Anderson (Primary Presenter/Author), University of California, Riverside, kurt.anderson@ucr.edu;


Ryan Conway (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of California, Riverside, rconw002@ucr.edu;


Francesco Pancaldi (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of California, Riverside, francesp@ucr.edu;


Daniel Collister (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of California, Riverside, dcoll010@ucr.edu;


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5/23/2019  |   09:15 - 09:30   |  151 G

DORMANCY IN METACOMMUNITIES: WHEN CAN TEMPORAL DISPERSAL MAINTAIN DIVERSITY IN VARIABLE LANDSCAPES? Metacommunity ecology has improved our understanding of how niche selection, spatial heterogeneity, and dispersal influence community structure. However, the focus on spatial dispersal overlooks the capabilities of many species to disperse through time via the process of dormancy. We propose a framework for integrating spatial and temporal dispersal mechanisms into metacommunity ecology. Using simulation models, we show that dormancy can maintain regional scale biodiversity in dynamic landscapes, especially when dispersal is limiting relative to the rate of environmental variability. The effects of dormancy on local and regional diversity also depend on the covariation between dispersal and dormancy. When dispersal and dormancy positively covary, dormancy can lower the rate of dispersal needed to homogenize metacommunity diversity. When dispersal and dormancy negatively covary, dormancy can maintain higher local and regional diversity, but cannot buffer against the homogenizing effects of high dispersal. Our models indicate that dormancy may be an overlooked component of metacommunity ecology that can influence spatial and temporal patterns of biodiversity in a changing world.

Nathan Wisnoski (Primary Presenter/Author), Indiana University, wisnoski@indiana.edu;


Mathew Leibold (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of Florida, mleibold@ufl.edu;


Jay Lennon (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Indiana University, lennonj@indiana.edu;


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5/23/2019  |   09:30 - 09:45   |  151 G

SIMULATIONS SHOW METACOMMUNITY, STREAM NETWORK, AND DISTURBANCE CHARACTERISTICS INTERACT TO MAINTAIN BIODIVERSITY, AND HAVE CONSEQUENCES FOR REGIONAL STABILITY A major goal in ecology is to link community stability to spatial processes in variable environments. Previously, we used numerical models to test how different metacommunity dynamics could maintain benthic macroinvertebrate biodiversity in a watershed modeled after data collected as part of a biomonitoring program in California (SWAMP). We found equilibrium metacommunity dynamics could not maintain the observed levels of biodiversity at both local and regional scales. Thus, we adapted our metacommunity simulation (MCSim package for R (https://github.com/sokole/MCSim) to impose different disturbance regimes over metacommunities in dendritic networks. Here we present results from numerical models comparing temporal variability in community composition at local and regional scales across scenarios in which we varied disturbance (mass local mortality) frequency, network structure (branching probability), and metacommunity characteristics (dispersal and environmental filter strength). We found previously observed biodiversity patterns could be maintained by the opposing forces of local environmental filters favoring the recruitment of resident taxa, interrupted by recurring disturbance events favoring the recruitment of non-resident colonists, and disturbance most strongly affected mid-order reaches. However, altering network structure or metacommunity characteristics changed where in the stream network the largest effect of disturbance was observed.

Ryan Conway (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of California, Riverside, rconw002@ucr.edu;


Kurt Anderson (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of California, Riverside, kurt.anderson@ucr.edu;


Christopher Swan (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of Maryland Baltimore County, cmswan@umbc.edu;


Bryan Brown (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Virginia Tech, stonefly@vt.edu;


Eric Sokol (Primary Presenter/Author), Battelle, National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), sokole@gmail.com;
NEON Ecologist and Data Scientist

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5/23/2019  |   09:45 - 10:00   |  151 G

INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTS OF NETWORK POSITION ON STREAMFISH AND MACROINVERTEBRATE COMMUNITY STABILITY AND STRUCTURE IN DIFFERENT LANDSCAPES The Network Position Hypothesis postulates that isolated reaches (headwaters) are controlled by environmental effects and central reaches (downstream) controlled by spatial or dispersal effects. In community ecology, there is a lack of consensus on the effects of network position on community structure and little information about its effects on community stability. These uncertainties are prohibitive to making informed conservation and management decisions. Thus, investigating how community patterns and stability vary in space and time is a necessary step. We explored this gap by using multiple streamfish and macroinvertebrate datasets from different US management agencies. In this study, we asked the question “How does network structure and position control the structure and stability of streamfish and macroinvertebrate communities in different landscapes?”. We quantified stability with multiple metrics and compared across headwater and downstream sites and across landscapes. We used Variation Partitioning to decompose variation in communities into environmental, spatial, and temporal factors and did the same for headwater and downstream sites separately.

Steven Bittner (Primary Presenter/Author), University of Oklahoma, stevenmbittner@gmail.com;


Daniel Allen (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), The Pennsylvania State University, dca5269@psu.edu;


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5/23/2019  |   10:00 - 10:15   |  151 G

USING METACOMMUNITY THEORY TO PREDICT THE OUTCOMES OF HOST AND SYMBIONT CO-INVASION What happens to symbiont biodiversity when hosts invade? Given that most organisms are involved in symbiotic interactions, these coupled invasions are not rare. In order to understand the potential outcomes of symbiont co-invasion and to predict their effect on symbiont biodiversity at both local and regional scales, we created a neutral metacommunity model of symbionts on hosts and simulated the process of invasion. In these simulations, we focused on 3 variables: percent invasion, host suitability, and symbiont dispersal rate. The major outcomes of this model were 1) that total symbiont abundance declined with % invasion, but the rate of decline was modulated by symbiont dispersal and variation in host suitability; 2) that gamma diversity was maintained even at very high levels of invasion, but as invasion increased, the partition of diversity shifted from alpha to beta. We compared these model results to biodiversity patterns from a multi-drainage survey of crayfish and their ectosymbionts and found a high level of similarity, though not all variables from the model could be represented in the survey data. We view these as first steps in understanding the responses of symbiont diversity to biological invasions.

Bryan Brown (Primary Presenter/Author), Virginia Tech, stonefly@vt.edu;


Spencer Bell (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of Alabama, obscurus@vt.edu;


Robert Creed (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Appalachian State Universtiy, creedrp@appstate.edu;


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5/23/2019  |   10:15 - 10:30   |  151 G

THE ROLE OF MULTI-SCALE BIODIVERSITY IN METACOMMUNITY TEMPORAL STABILITY Metacommunity theory has been largely tested through spatial analysis of data; focusing on species dispersal abilities, spatial scale, habitat connectivity, and network structure. However, less work has focused on the temporal dynamics of metacommunities. Systems theory poses that stability in spatially-structured systems emerges from local stability and the degree of spatial asynchrony among locales. Previous research has focused on local stability or regional synchrony—often overlooking the interactions among the two. Here we present the results of work examining the interactions between drivers of local stability, primarily local biodiversity; and drivers of regional synchrony, focusing on spatial scale and the regional diversity of species and environmental characteristics. The analyses were performed using spatially-explicit, decadal-scale datasets of freshwater fishes, invertebrates, and macrophytes. We found that metacommunity-level stability was positively influenced by asynchrony, which was in turn driven by b-diversity, y-richness, environmental dissimilarity, and a-diversity. However, local-scale stability, driven primarily by a-diversity and y-richness , had a greater positive impact on metacommunity stability than asynchrony. Biodiversity loss and habitat homogenization are thus expected to erode metacommunity stability in freshwater ecosystems—understanding exactly how is key to anticipating systemic impacts.

Christopher Patrick (Primary Presenter/Author), Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), cpatrick@vims.edu;


Kevin McCluney (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Bowling Green State University, kmcclun@bgsu.edu;


Albert Ruhi (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, albert.ruhi@berkeley.edu;


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