Volta

The influence of environmental and spatial factors on benthic invertebrate metacommunities differing in size and dispersal mode

Abstract Understanding the drivers of species distribution is an important topic in conservation biology and ecology, pertaining to species traits like dispersal strategies and species–environment interactions. Here we examined the drivers of benthic species distribution at 20 sections of a second-order stream network. Environmental and spatial factors and the dispersal modes of the organisms were considered. We expected that species with aerial dispersal capabilities like insects would be less restrained by distance between sites and thus mostly affected by environmental factors. In contrast, we hypothesized that completely benthic species would mainly be affected by spatial factors due to limited dispersal. However, microscopic species like nematodes characterized by a high passive dispersal potential may be less limited by spatial factors. When …

Reference & gravity metrics

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