How fish traits and functional diversity respond to environmental changes and species invasion in the largest river in Southeastern China

©2021 Lin et al..

BACKGROUND: Freshwater fish populations are facing multiple stressors, including climate change, species invasion, and anthropogenic interference. Temporal studies of fish functional diversity and community assembly rules based on trait-environment relationships provide insights into fish community structure in riverine ecosystems.

METHODS: Fish samples were collected in 2015 in the Min River, the largest freshwater riverine system in Southeastern China. Fish functional diversity was compared with the background investigation in 1979. Changes in functional richness, functional evenness, functional divergence, and functional beta diversity were analyzed. Relationships between functional diversity and environmental factors were modeled by random forest regression. Correlations between fish functional traits and environmental factors were detected by fourth-corner combined with RLQ analysis.

RESULTS: Functional richness was significantly reduced in 2015 compared with 1979. Functional beta diversity in 2015 was significantly higher than that in 1979, with functional nestedness being the driving component. Reduction of functional richness and domination of functional nestedness is associated with species loss. Trait convergence was the dominant mechanism driving the temporal changes of functional diversity. Precipitation, temperature, species invasion, and human population were the most significant factors driving fish functional diversity. Higher precipitation, higher temperature, and presence of invasive species were significantly associated with higher swimming factor and higher relative eye diameter, while the opposite environmental conditions were significantly associated with higher pectoral fin length and eurytopic water flow preference.

CONCLUSIONS: Environmental filtering is the dominant temporal assembly mechanism shaping fish community structure. This work contributes to the understanding of temporal freshwater fish community assembly and the associations between fish functional structure and local environmental conditions, which will be informative for future freshwater fish conservation.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2021

Erschienen:

2021

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:9

Enthalten in:

PeerJ - 9(2021) vom: 06., Seite e11824

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Lin, Li [VerfasserIn]
Deng, Weide [VerfasserIn]
Huang, Xiaoxia [VerfasserIn]
Liu, Yang [VerfasserIn]
Huang, Liangliang [VerfasserIn]
Kang, Bin [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Environmental filtering
Fish fauna
Functional diversity
Journal Article
Species interaction
The Min River
Turnover

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 25.04.2022

published: Electronic-eCollection

Citation Status PubMed-not-MEDLINE

doi:

10.7717/peerj.11824

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM32930089X