strong spatial influence on colonization rates in a pioneer zooplankton metacommunity强大的空间影响浮游动物metacommunity先驱殖民率.pdf

Strong Spatial Influence on Colonization Rates in a Pioneer Zooplankton Metacommunity 1,3 2 3 3 Dagmar Frisch *, Karl Cottenie , Anna Badosa , Andy J. Green 1 University of Oklahoma Biological Station, University of Oklahoma, Kingston, Oklahoma, United States of America, 2 Department of Integrative Biology, University of ˜ Guelph, Guelph, Canada, 3 Department of Wetland Ecology, Donana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC), Sevilla, Spain Abstract The magnitude of community-wide dispersal is central to metacommunity models, yet dispersal is notoriously difficult to quantify in passive and cryptic dispersers such as many freshwater invertebrates. By overcoming the problem of quantifying dispersal rates, colonization rates into new habitats can provide a useful estimate of the magnitude of effective dispersal. Here we study the influence of spatial and local processes on colonization rates into new ponds that indicate differential dispersal limitation of major zooplankton taxa, with important implications for metacommunity dynamics. We identify regional and local factors that affect zooplankton colonization rates and spatial patterns in a large-scale experimental system. Our study differs from others in the unique setup of the experimental pond area by which we were able to test spatial and environmental variables at a large spatial scale. We quantified colonization rates separately for the Copepoda, Cladocera and Rotifera from samples collected over a period of 21 months in 48 newly constructed tem