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Seasonal and spatial functional shifts in phytoplankton communities of five tropical reservoirs

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Abstract

Trait-based approaches have become increasingly important and valuable in understanding phytoplankton community assembly and composition. These approaches allow for comparisons between water bodies with different species composition. We hypothesize that similar changes in environmental conditions lead to similar responses with regard to functional traits of phytoplankton communities, regardless of trophic state or species composition. We studied the phytoplankton (species composition, community trait mean and diversity) of five reservoirs in Brazil along a trophic gradient from ultra-oligotrophic to meso-eutrophic. Samples at two seasons (summer/rainy and winter/dry) with a horizontal and vertical resolution were taken. Using multivariate analysis, the five reservoirs separated, despite some overlap, according to their environmental variables (mainly total phosphorus, conductivity, pH, chlorophyll a). However, between the seasonal periods, the reservoirs shifted in a similar direction in the multi-dimensional space. The seasonal response of the overall phytoplankton community trait mean differed between the ultra-oligotrophic and the other reservoirs, with three reservoirs exhibiting a very similar community trait mean despite considerable differences in species composition. Within-season differences between different water layers were low. The functional diversity was also unrelated to the trophic state of the reservoirs. Thus, seasonal environmental changes had strong influence on the functional characteristics of the phytoplankton community in reservoirs with distinct trophic condition and species composition. These results demonstrate that an ataxonomic trait-based approach is a relevant tool for comparative studies in phytoplankton ecology.

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Source: Santana et al. (2017)

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Acknowledgements

L. M. S. was supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) with a doctoral fellowship (Grant No. 2011/24000-4). This work was carried out within the framework of the AcquaSed project also supported by funds from FAPESP (Grant No. 2009/53898–9). We thank especially Dra. Angélica C. Righetti da Rocha for her help and efforts in the limnological and diatom database. We deeply appreciate the assistance of personnel from the agency in charge São Paulo’s public water supply—SABESP/RHMS (Companhia de Saneamento do Estado de São Paulo, Divisão de Recursos Hídricos Metropolitanos Sudoeste) for their valuable logistical support during the fieldwork. We also thank all students and technicians from Laboratório de Ecologia Aquática, Instituto de Botânica, involved in the laboratory and fieldwork.

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  1. Núcleo de Pesquisa em Ecologia, Instituto de Botânica, Av. Miguel Stéfano, 3687, Água Funda, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Lucineide Maria Santana & Carla Ferragut

  2. Department of Ecology and Ecosystem Modelling, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Guntram Weithoff

  3. Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB), Berlin, Germany

    Guntram Weithoff

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  1. Lucineide Maria Santana
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  2. Guntram Weithoff
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Correspondence to Lucineide Maria Santana.

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Santana, L.M., Weithoff, G. & Ferragut, C. Seasonal and spatial functional shifts in phytoplankton communities of five tropical reservoirs. Aquat Ecol 51, 531–543 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-017-9634-3

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