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Morphofunctional traits reflect differences in phytoplankton community between rivers of contrasting flow regime

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Abstract

A morphofunctional traits approach has been adopted to identify how environmental factors shape the phytoplankton community. This approach has been applied in two rivers where hydrodynamical conditions are expected to be the main factor acting on the phytoplankton community. Hence, morphological traits (motility, shape, size, mucilage, and silica) related to sedimentation resistance have been chosen. We have shown that differences in flow regulation through differences in flow velocities induce shifts in phytoplankton community. These shifts depend mostly on shape, buoyancy regulation, and motility of phytoplankton cells. Elongated shapes are the characteristic of unregulated sites with high flow velocities, while cells able to regulate actively their position or to reduce their density (mucilaginous colonies) are found in regulated sites with low flow velocities. Flattened shapes are also the characteristic of sites with rather low flow velocities. These results highlight the key role of flow velocity as a driving factor controlling the structure of phytoplankton community. In this study, flow velocity also structures phytoplankton community according to location rather than seasonality.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from CNRS and Veolia Environment to Stéphane Fraisse. The authors thank Guillaume Bouger, Enora Briand, and Philippe Louâpre for their great help during sampling periods, and Marie-Paule Briand and Nathalie Josselin-Lebris for physicochemical analyses done in ABGC center in ECOBIO. Help for species identification was provided by Luc Brient, Katia Pobis, and Frédéric Rimet. The authors also thank the three referees for their fruitful corrections.

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  1. Université de Rennes 1, UMR CNRS 6553 ECOBIO, Campus de Beaulieu, 35042, Rennes Cedex, France

    Stéphane Fraisse, Myriam Bormans & Yvan Lagadeuc

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  1. Stéphane Fraisse
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  2. Myriam Bormans
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  3. Yvan Lagadeuc
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Correspondence to Stéphane Fraisse.

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Fraisse, S., Bormans, M. & Lagadeuc, Y. Morphofunctional traits reflect differences in phytoplankton community between rivers of contrasting flow regime. Aquat Ecol 47, 315–327 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-013-9446-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-013-9446-z

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