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A multi-scale comparison of trait linkages to environmental and spatial variables in fish communities across a large freshwater lake

  • Community ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Species present in communities are affected by the prevailing environmental conditions, and the traits that these species display may be sensitive indicators of community responses to environmental change. However, interpretation of community responses may be confounded by environmental variation at different spatial scales. Using a hierarchical approach, we assessed the spatial and temporal variation of traits in coastal fish communities in Lake Huron over a 5-year time period (2001–2005) in response to biotic and abiotic environmental factors. The association of environmental and spatial variables with trophic, life-history, and thermal traits at two spatial scales (regional basin-scale, local site-scale) was quantified using multivariate statistics and variation partitioning. We defined these two scales (regional, local) on which to measure variation and then applied this measurement framework identically in all 5 study years. With this framework, we found that there was no change in the spatial scales of fish community traits over the course of the study, although there were small inter-annual shifts in the importance of regional basin- and local site-scale variables in determining community trait composition (e.g., life-history, trophic, and thermal). The overriding effects of regional-scale variables may be related to inter-annual variation in average summer temperature. Additionally, drivers of fish community traits were highly variable among study years, with some years dominated by environmental variation and others dominated by spatially structured variation. The influence of spatial factors on trait composition was dynamic, which suggests that spatial patterns in fish communities over large landscapes are transient. Air temperature and vegetation were significant variables in most years, underscoring the importance of future climate change and shoreline development as drivers of fish community structure. Overall, a trait-based hierarchical framework may be a useful conservation tool, as it highlights the multi-scaled interactive effect of variables over a large landscape.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the field crews for their sampling efforts, Lucian Marcogliese for data management, Bronwyn Rayfield and Jonathan Ruppert for assistance with SELES and ArcGIS, and Pedro Peres-Neto and two anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback. Funding for this project was provided by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grants to PAA, MJF, and DAJ.

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Author notes

  1. Angela L. Strecker

    Present address: School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98105, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G5, Canada

    Angela L. Strecker, Marie-Josée Fortin, Donald A. Jackson, Peter A. Abrams & Brian J. Shuter

  2. Department of Biology, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada

    John M. Casselman

  3. Aquatic Research and Development Section, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada

    Mark S. Ridgway & Brian J. Shuter

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  1. Angela L. Strecker
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Correspondence to Angela L. Strecker.

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Communicated by Pedro Peres-Neto.

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Strecker, A.L., Casselman, J.M., Fortin, MJ. et al. A multi-scale comparison of trait linkages to environmental and spatial variables in fish communities across a large freshwater lake. Oecologia 166, 819–831 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-1924-1

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