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Conference paper2023Peer reviewedOpen access

Compositional breakpoints of freshwater plant communities across continents

Garcia-Giron, Jorge; Heino, Jani; Baastrup-Spohr, Lars; Clayton, John; de Winton, Mary; Feldmann, Tonu; Fernandez-Alaez, Camino; Ecke, Frauke; Grillas, Patrick; Hoyer, Mark, V; Kolada, Agnieszka; Kosten, Sarian; Lukacs, Balazs A.; Mjelde, Marit; Mormul, Roger P.; Rhazi, Laila; Rhazi, Mouhssine; Sass, Laura; Xu, Jun; Alahuhta, Janne

Abstract

Unravelling patterns and mechanisms of biogeographical transitions is crucial if we are to understand compositional gradients at large spatial extents, but no studies have thus far examined breakpoints in community composition of freshwater plants across continents. Using a dataset of almost 500 observations of lake plant community composition from six continents, we examined, for the first time, if such breakpoints in geographical space exist for freshwater plants and how well a suite of ecological factors (including climatic and local environmental variables) can explain transitions in community composition from the subtropics to the poles. Our combination of multivariate regression tree (MRT) analysis and k-means partitioning suggests that the most abrupt breakpoint exists between temperate to boreal regions on the one hand and freshwater plant communities harbouring mainly subtropical or Mediterranean assemblages on the other. The spatially structured variation in current climatic conditions is the most likely candidate for controlling these latitudinal patterns, although one cannot rule out joint effects of eco-evolutiona-ry constraints in the harsher high-latitude environments and post-glacial migration lags after Pleistocene Ice Ages. Overall, our study supports the foundations of global regionalisation for freshwater plants and anticipates further biogeographical research on freshwater plant communities once datasets have been harmonised for conducting large-scale spatial analyses.

Keywords

aquatic macrophytes; biogeography; latitudinal patterns; regionalisation

Published in

Limnetica
2023, Volume: 42, number: 2, pages: 291-301
Publisher: Madrid: Asociación Ibérica de Limnología

Conference

21st Congress of the Iberian-Association-of-Limnology (AIL) / 21st National Congress of Ecology (Portuguese Ecological Society -SPECO), JUL 02-08, 2022, PORTUGAL