TY - JOUR
T1 - Joint species models reveal the effects of environment on community assemblage of freshwater mussels and fishes in European rivers
AU - Inoue, Kentaro
AU - Stoeckl, Katharina
AU - Geist, Juergen
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2017/3/1
Y1 - 2017/3/1
N2 - Aim: Given that riverine systems exhibit longitudinal environmental gradients from headwater to the mouth of a river, habitat heterogeneity appears to be a major driver of spatial variation in community composition among riverine localities. As freshwater ecosystems are amongst the most endangered ecosystems in the world, community-based conservation and multiple-species management are necessary to maintain ecosystem integrity. We used joint species distribution models (JSDMs) to investigate the relative importance of abiotic and biotic factors that are responsible for the distribution and co-occurrence of species in riverine ecosystems. Location: Central and northern Europe. Methods: We examined the general patterns of species assemblage of two endangered freshwater mussel species (Margaritifera margaritifera and Unio crassus) and their associated fish communities. We examined the patterns of positive or negative co-occurrence in mussel and fish species and identified shared abiotic responses between mussel–host pairs. Results: We found that the relative importance of abiotic and residual factors and patterns of significant species correlations varied among taxa: significant residual correlations were prevalent among fish species, whereas mussel occurrences were exclusively explained by abiotic factors. Mussels and their fish hosts generally had shared abiotic responses with some mismatched responses between mussel–host pairs. Main conclusions: Given that the composition of communities were tightly linked with abiotic factors and residual correlations, the results have significant implications for the conservation and restoration of aquatic communities. This study highlights the necessity to simultaneously consider environmental factors and species co-occurrences in the modelling of species distributions and assemblages of riverine communities. Such a holistic community conservation approach can reveal ecological similarities and differences among species, which can help us avoid conflicts among target-species conservation plans.
AB - Aim: Given that riverine systems exhibit longitudinal environmental gradients from headwater to the mouth of a river, habitat heterogeneity appears to be a major driver of spatial variation in community composition among riverine localities. As freshwater ecosystems are amongst the most endangered ecosystems in the world, community-based conservation and multiple-species management are necessary to maintain ecosystem integrity. We used joint species distribution models (JSDMs) to investigate the relative importance of abiotic and biotic factors that are responsible for the distribution and co-occurrence of species in riverine ecosystems. Location: Central and northern Europe. Methods: We examined the general patterns of species assemblage of two endangered freshwater mussel species (Margaritifera margaritifera and Unio crassus) and their associated fish communities. We examined the patterns of positive or negative co-occurrence in mussel and fish species and identified shared abiotic responses between mussel–host pairs. Results: We found that the relative importance of abiotic and residual factors and patterns of significant species correlations varied among taxa: significant residual correlations were prevalent among fish species, whereas mussel occurrences were exclusively explained by abiotic factors. Mussels and their fish hosts generally had shared abiotic responses with some mismatched responses between mussel–host pairs. Main conclusions: Given that the composition of communities were tightly linked with abiotic factors and residual correlations, the results have significant implications for the conservation and restoration of aquatic communities. This study highlights the necessity to simultaneously consider environmental factors and species co-occurrences in the modelling of species distributions and assemblages of riverine communities. Such a holistic community conservation approach can reveal ecological similarities and differences among species, which can help us avoid conflicts among target-species conservation plans.
KW - aquatic community distribution and structure
KW - community-based conservation
KW - determinants of mussel distribution
KW - joint species distribution model
KW - latent variable model
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85009164405&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/ddi.12520
DO - 10.1111/ddi.12520
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85009164405
SN - 1366-9516
VL - 23
SP - 284
EP - 296
JO - Diversity and Distributions
JF - Diversity and Distributions
IS - 3
ER -