Estimating lagoonal biodiversity in Greece: comparison of rapid assessment techniques

An attempt is made to compare the results of different rapid biodiversity assessment techniques at the pan-Mediterranean, sectorial and local levels. A uniform multivariate pattern exists at the pan-Mediterranean and national (sectorial) levels: lagoons can be different when they host only a few species, but as species numbers increase, lagoons become homogenous in composition. Multivariate techniques cannot distinguish anthropogenically-impacted lagoons from those, which are naturally disturbed. In the pan-Mediterranean context it is the higher taxonomic levels, but in the national and local context it is the most abundant macrobenthic groups (polychaetes, molluscs and crustaceans) and meiobenthos which provide patterns closest to that derived from the species level. Taxonomic distinctness indices applied to polychaete and mollusc inventories provide meaningful results at most levels and scales of observation. These indices seem to be robust enough to discriminate anthropogenically impacted from naturally disturbed lagoons.     

Do multivariate analyses incorporating changes in pattern across taxonomic levels reveal anthropogenic stress in Mediterranean lagoons?

It is accepted that observed patterns in community structure change as analyses are carried out at higher taxonomic levels. Univariate analyses which incorporate higher taxonomic structure within assemblages have been shown to be informative. In this paper we suggest ways in which changes in multivariate relationships at higher taxonomic levels and associated with higher taxonomic/phylogenetic structure of the community may be incorporated into multivariate analyses, an aspect never occurred before in this type of analysis. Four approaches, namely: biodiversity MDS (bdMDS), number of taxa MDS (ntMDS), delta MDS (δMDS) and lambda MDS (λMDS), are proposed, and applied to theoretical data as well as to data collected from the literature on the Mediterranean lagoonal environment. Results show that these approaches have the capacity to distinguish severely impacted lagoons from naturally disturbed ones, although in practice the simplest method (ntMDS) was the most successful. Analyses based on the most abundant groups (polychaetes, molluscs, crustaceans) did not always match analyses based on the entire macrofauna, mirroring the performance of taxonomic distinctness indices in the Mediterranean lagoons. The important characteristics of the approaches introduced, as well as potential criticisms are provided. Application of these techniques on smaller scales and to other habitats, is suggested prior to their wider use in the region.     

Responses of taxonomic distinctness and species diversity indices to anthropogenic impacts and natural environmental gradients in stream macroinvertebrates

1. Many studies have shown traditional species diversity indices to perform poorly in discriminating anthropogenic influences on biodiversity. By contrast, in marine systems, taxonomic distinctness indices that take into account the taxonomic relatedness of species have been shown to discriminate anthropogenic effects. However, few studies have examined the performance of taxonomic distinctness indices in freshwater systems. 2. We studied the performance of four species diversity indices and four taxonomic distinctness indices for detecting anthropogenic effects on stream macroinvertebrate assemblages. Further, we examined the effects of catchment type and area, as well as two variables (pH and total phosphorus) potentially describing anthropogenic perturbation on biodiversity. 3. We found no indications of degraded biodiversity at the putatively disturbed sites. However, species density, rarefied species richness, Shannon's diversity and taxonomic diversity showed higher index values in streams draining mineral as opposed to peatland catchments. 4. Of the major environmental gradients analysed, biodiversity indices showed the strongest relationships with catchment area, lending further support to the importance of stream size for macroinvertebrate biodiversity. Some of the indices also showed weak linear and quadratic relationships to pH and total phosphorus, and residuals from the biodiversity index‐catchment area regressions (i.e. area effect standardized) were more weakly related to pH and total phosphorus than the original index values. 5. There are a number of reasons why the biodiversity indices did not respond to anthropogenic perturbation. First, some natural environmental gradients may mask the effects of perturbation on biodiversity. Secondly, perturbations of riverine ecosystems in our study area may not be strong enough to cause drastic changes in biodiversity. Thirdly, multiple anthropogenic stressors may either increase or decrease biodiversity, and thus the coarse division of sites into reference and altered streams may be an oversimplification. 6. Although neither species diversity nor taxonomic distinctness indices revealed anthropogenic degradation of macroinvertebrate assemblages in this study, the traditional species diversity and taxonomic distinctness indices were very weakly correlated. Therefore, we urge that biodiversity assessment and conservation planning should utilize a number of different indices, as they may provide complementary information about biotic assemblages.     

Application of biotic and taxonomic distinctness indices in assessing the Ecological Quality Status of two coastal lakes: Caprolace and Fogliano lakes (Central Italy)

Marine biotic indices (AMBI, BENTIX) and the statistical tool M-AMBI (Multivariate AMBI) were applied as a comparative approach in assessing the Ecological Quality Status (EcoQS) of two Mediterranean coastal lakes (Caprolace and Fogliano lakes) situated in the Circeo National Park (Central Italy). The macrobenthic community was analysed using univariate indices (community structure), correspondence analysis (CA) and taxonomic distinctness indices (Δ⁺ and Λ⁺). The community composition showed a dominance of lagoonal species in both coastal lakes, while in Caprolace lake marine taxa were also found. Diversity index (H′) complies to ranges found in Mediterranean lagoons and taxonomic distinctness indices demonstrated that taxonomy structure is in accordance with natural variability ranges. Principal component analysis (PCA) on chemical parameters of water and sediment showed that both coastal lakes differ mainly in their organic matter composition. In fact, the protein fraction of bio-polymeric carbon prevails in Fogliano lake, while the ‘refractory’ component represented by carbohydrate fraction is predominant in Caprolace lake. The difference between the two coastal lakes was also demonstrated by co-inertia analysis (COIA) performed using abundance of species and concentrations of chemical parameters. The results from the application of the three biotic indices do not highlight a clear distinction between the two lagoons. However, the AMBI index provided a more suitable evaluation of EcoQS corresponding to ‘slightly polluted’ lagoons while M-AMBI and moreover BENTIX indices indicated a worsening situation. The biotic indices are widely used in assessing the EcoQS in marine environments, but their proper application in transitional waters would depend on a resettlement; thresholds established in the biotic index scale values need to be modified according to natural variability of transitional waters referring to abiotic conditions and abundance of tolerant species.     

Can taxonomic distinctness assess anthropogenic impacts in inland waters? A case study from a Mediterranean river basin

1. It is increasingly recognised that adequate measures of biodiversity should include information on the ‘relatedness’ of species within ecological assemblages, or the phylogenetic levels at which diversity is expressed. Taxonomic distinctness measures provide a series of indices to achieve this, which are independent of sample size. Taxonomic distinctness has been employed widely in marine systems, where it has been suggested that this index can provide a reliable measure of anthropogenic impact. 2. We tested the behaviour of three related taxonomic distinctiveness indices (Average Taxonomic Distinctness, Δ⁺; Variation in Taxonomic Distinctness, Λ⁺; and Total Taxonomic Distinctness, sΔ⁺) in relation to putative levels of anthropogenic impact in inland waters and their potential utility in environmental monitoring, using an extensive data set for aquatic beetles from the south‐east of the Iberian Peninsula. 3. Taxonomic distinctness measures were not able to identify human disturbance effects and there were no clear relationships between these new biodiversity measures and the disturbance level recorded at individual localities. Furthermore, the taxonomic distinctness measures used were apparently less sensitive to the effects of anthropogenic impact than other diversity metrics, such as species richness and rarity. 4. We conclude that taxonomic distinctness indices may not always perform as well as other metrics in the assessment of environmental quality. In addition, taxonomic distinctness measure should be interpreted with caution, as their performance and ability to detect anthropogenic disturbance may depend on the phylogenetic structure of sampled taxa within a region, and their evolutionary and ecological history.     

Seasonal variations in macrobenthic taxonomic diversity and the application of taxonomic distinctness indices in Bohai Bay,northern China

Taxonomic diversity indices have a number of desirable properties as indicators in the assessment of environmental quality, and have become an important measure in biodiversity studies. Macrobenthic taxonomic variations were studied in Bohai Bay, northern China, an area under threat from rapid human development. Four seasonal cruise datasets were collected between 2006 and 2007. Environmental conditions exhibited large fluctuations due to human development; nitrogen and phosphorus were the main environmental stressors. A total of 97 macrofauna taxa were identified belonging to 88 genera, 72 families, 36 orders, 14 classes, and nine phyla. Analysis of similarity indicated that there were significant assemblage differences across sampling stations as well as seasons. Four taxonomic indices, taxonomic diversity (Δ), taxonomic distinctness (Δ*), average taxonomic distinctness (Δ⁺), and variation in taxonomic distinctness (Λ⁺) were calculated using abundance data. Among the stations and seasons, there were greater variations in both Δ and Λ⁺ than in Δ* and Δ⁺. The funnel plot of Δ⁺ could identify disturbed stations to some extent, but was not always a strong indicator of disturbance. The Δ⁺ performance was better in autumn than in spring, but could not identify a disturbed station in autumn due to a low number of species. The efficiency of taxonomic distinctness may depend on taxa or the pollution indicators. Taxonomic distinctness indices can be effective at assessing environmental degradation when correctly applied; however, they are unsuitable for directly assessing environmental quality in a new area prior to efficiency testing.     

The taxonomic distinctness of coastal bottom-dwelling fish communities of the North-east Atlantic

1. New techniques for identifying the average taxonomic range of species assemblages were applied to an extensive dataset of bottom-dwelling fish in the coastal waters of NW Europe. These taxonomic distinctness indices provided much greater resolution than traditional diversity indices as they incorporated information on taxonomic relationships into an index which measures species dominance. Unlike standard measures of species richness and diversity, the mean value of these statistics is independent of sampling effort, and this allows objective comparisons to be made between samples from studies where sampling effort is not standardized.
2. A reduction in the average taxonomic range between the fauna of western waters of the UK and that of the southern North Sea was consistent with the general decline in species richness observed between these regions, and suggests that these two factors may be spatially positively correlated. Indices calculated for individual samples of fish on a local scale, however, did not all fit this trend.
3. Much of the variability in taxonomic diversity within the coastal waters of NW Europe was caused by the variable geographical distribution of the elasmobranchs. Of all the families which comprise the fish communities, this group has life-history characteristics which make it most susceptible to impact by commercial trawl fisheries.
4. The use of taxonomic distinctness measures provided additional insights, of relevance to biodiversity assessment, suggesting that they might usefully be applied to other aquatic and terrestrial fauna.     

Utilization of species checklist data in revealing the spatial distribution of fish diversity

Marine fish species checklists from six Chinese coastal waters were combined for the analysis of taxonomic diversity. The Genus-Family index (G-F index) ranged between 0.39 and 0.84, which generally indicated a decreasing trend with increasing latitude, with the exception of the southernmost area. Average taxonomic distinctness showed a slight increasing trend from northern to central study areas, but whether the taxonomic distinctness indices represent a latitudinal gradient of biodiversity requires further study. The multivariate analysis revealed a distinct latitudinal variation in fish assemblages. These results indicate that species checklist data are helpful in understanding the diversity distribution of fish species in the coastal zone. The potential of a species inventory should be exploited to fully understand biodiversity.     

Multiple facets of stream macroinvertebrate alpha diversity are driven by different ecological factors across an extensive altitudinal gradient

Environmental filtering and spatial structuring are important ecological processes for the generation and maintenance of biodiversity. However, the relative importance of these ecological drivers for multiple facets of diversity is still poorly understood in highland streams. Here, we examined the responses of three facets of stream macroinvertebrate alpha diversity to local environmental, landscape‐climate and spatial factors in a near‐pristine highland riverine ecosystem. Taxonomic (species richness, Shannon diversity, and evenness), functional (functional richness, evenness, divergence, and Rao's Quadratic entropy), and a proxy of phylogenetic alpha diversity (taxonomic distinctness and variation in taxonomic distinctness) were calculated for macroinvertebrate assemblages in 55 stream sites. Then Pearson correlation coefficient was used to explore congruence of indices within and across the three diversity facets. Finally, multiple linear regression models and variation partitioning were employed to identify the relative importance of different ecological drivers of biodiversity. We found most correlations between the diversity indices within the same facet, and between functional richness and species richness were relatively strong. The two phylogenetic diversity indices were quite independent from taxonomic diversity but correlated with functional diversity indices to some extent. Taxonomic and functional diversity were more strongly determined by environmental variables, while phylogenetic diversity was better explained by spatial factors. In terms of environmental variables, habitat‐scale variables describing habitat complexity and water physical features played the primary role in determining the diversity patterns of all three facets, whereas landscape factors appeared less influential. Our findings indicated that both environmental and spatial factors are important ecological drivers for biodiversity patterns of macroinvertebrates in Tibetan streams, although their relative importance was contingent on different facets of diversity. Such findings verified the complementary roles of taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity, and highlighted the importance of comprehensively considering multiple ecological drivers for different facets of diversity in biodiversity assessment.     

Patterns in freshwater diatom taxonomic distinctness along an eutrophication gradient

1. A variety of species richness measures have been used to assess the effects of environmental degradation on biodiversity. Such measures can be highly influenced by sample size, sampling effort, habitat type or complexity, however, and typically do not show monotonic responses to human impact. In addition to being independent of the degree of sampling effort involved in data acquisition, effective measures of biodiversity should reflect the degree of taxonomical relatedness among species within ecological assemblages and provide a basis for understanding observed diversity for a particular habitat type. Taxonomic diversity or distinctness indices emphasize the average taxonomic relatedness (i.e. degree of taxonomical closeness) between species in a community. 2. Eutrophication of freshwater ecosystems, mainly due to the increased availability of nutrients, notably phosphorus, has become a major environmental problem. Two measures of taxonomic distinctness (Average Taxonomic Distinctness and Variation in Taxonomic Distinctness) were applied to surface sediment diatoms from 45 lakes across the island of Ireland to examine whether taxonomic distinctness and nutrient enrichment were significantly related at a regional scale. The lakes span a range of concentrations of epilimnic total phosphorus (TP) and were grouped into six different types, based on depth and alkalinity levels, and three different categories according to trophic state (ultra‐oligotrophic and oligotrophic; mesotrophic; and eutrophic and hyper‐eutrophic). 3. The taxonomic distinctness measures revealed significant differences among lakes in the three different classes of trophic state, with nutrient‐rich lakes generally more taxonomically diverse than nutrient‐poor lakes. This implies that enrichment of oligotrophic lakes does not necessarily lead to a reduction in taxonomic diversity, at least as expressed by the indices used here. Furthermore, taxonomic distinctness was highly variable across the six different lake types regardless of nutrient level. 4. Results indicate that habitat availability and physical structure within the study lakes also exert a strong influence on the pattern of taxonomic diversity. Overall the results highlight problems with the use of taxonomic diversity measures for detecting impacts of freshwater eutrophication based on diatom assemblages.     

Scale-dependent patterns of macrofaunal distribution in soft-sediment intertidal habitats along a large-scale estuarine gradient

We investigated the pattern of distribution of intertidal soft-bottom fauna in streams and lagoons of the Uruguayan coast at three spatial scales. The Río de la Plata and the Atlantic Ocean produce on this coast a large-scale gradient in salinity, defining a freshwater (west), an estuarine (central) and a marine (east) region. Within each region, there are several streams and coastal lagoons (sites) that define a second scale of variability. A third scale is given by intertidal gradients within each site. Species richness and total abundance was low in the freshwater west region and high in the central and east regions. The community in the west region was characterized by the clam Curbicula fluminea; in the other regions, it was dominated mainly by the polychaete Heteromastus similis. The polychaete Nephtys fluviatilis was more abundant in the east region, while another polychaete, Laeonereis acuta, characterized the central region. Sediment fractions did not vary significantly at this scale. At the scale of the sites, species richness and total macrofaunal abundance were higher in coastal lagoons than in streams. Coarse sands were more common in coastal lagoons, while medium and fine sand characterized the sediment in streams. Within each site, species richness and total abundance increased towards the lower intertidal level; the macrofauna of the upper levels were a subsample of the fauna occurring at the lower levels. There was also a significantly lower proportion of fine sand at the upper level. At regional scales, the observed patterns may be indirectly or directly related to the gradient in salinity, through differential physiological tolerance to osmotic stress. At the scale of the sites, variability may be explained mainly by geomorphological and sedimentological differences between lagoons and streams. Variation among levels may be related to gradients in desiccation, colonization and predation.     

Hidden structural heterogeneity enhances marine hotspots’ biodiversity

Studies in terrestrial and shallow-water ecosystems have unravelled the key role of interspecific interactions in enhancing biodiversity, but important knowledge gaps persist for the deep sea. Cold-water coral reefs are hotspots of biodiversity, but the role of interspecific interactions and “habitat cascades” (i.e. positive effects on focal organisms mediated by biogenic habitat formation) in shaping their biodiversity is unknown. Associations between macrofaunal hosts and epifauna were examined in 47 stations at the Mingulay Reef Complex (northeast Atlantic). In total, 101 (group level) and 340 (species level) unique types of facultative associations formed by 43 hosts and 39 epifaunal species were found. Molluscs and empty polychaete tubes had higher values for the type and number of host-epifaunal associations, the Shannon–Wiener (H) and Margalef (d) indices of the epifauna than the rest of the taxonomic groups (p < 0.05). Hosts’ body size, orientation, surface smoothness, and growth form explained a significant amount of variability (32.96%) in epifauna community composition. Epifaunal species richness (S), H and d were 27.4 (± 2.2%), 56.2 (± 2.8%) and 39.9 (± 2.3%) of the respective values for the total sessile communities living on coral framework. This is intriguing as coral framework is orders of magnitude larger than the size of macrofaunal hosts. It is suggested that bivalves, tunicates and empty polychaete tubes increase habitat heterogeneity and enhance biodiversity through “habitat cascades”, in a similar way that epiphytes do in tropical rainforests. Most macrofaunal habitat suppliers in the studied cold-water coral reef are calcified species and likely susceptible to ocean acidification. This indicates that the impacts of climate change on the total biodiversity, structure and health of cold-water coral reefs may potentially be more severe than previously thought.

     

New frameworks for species surrogacy in monitoring highly variable coastal ecosystems: Applying the BestAgg approach to Mediterranean coastal lagoons

Benthic invertebrates are good indicators of aquatic ecosystem health. Yet, environmental monitoring and assessment of community changes in relation to both natural and human sources of disturbance involves considerable efforts for sample processing and time-consuming identifications of organisms, which make challenging large-scale and continuous monitoring programs required under the current regulatory frameworks at European scale. The use of higher taxa (e.g. families) as surrogates for species is a mainstream approach to reduce cost and time associated to fine taxonomic resolution in environmental studies, especially concerning macro-invertebrate communities. However, this approach of ‘taxonomic sufficiency’ simply relies on the static grouping of organisms in taxa belonging to a single higher taxonomic level irrespective of their ecological relevance or difficulties in their taxonomic identification, leading to unnecessary losses of taxonomic detail or ecological information. A new approach, namely the Best Practicable Aggregation of Species (BestAgg), has been recently developed as an alternative procedure for species surrogacy. BestAgg is based on aggregating species in the minimum number of surrogates sufficient to depict species-level community patterns consistently, while capitalizing on ecological information. Although the approach has been successfully applied to marine and freshwater invertebrate assemblages, its effectiveness in transitional water systems, where the complex and highly variable environmental conditions may affect the performance of surrogacy methods, still remain untested. Here, we applied the BestAgg approach to quantifying spatio-temporal patterns of variability of macro-invertebrate assemblages from Mediterranean coastal lagoons (Northern Adriatic Sea). Surrogates were defined using species-level data from a representative lagoon system, which served as pilot study. Then, they were used to analyze macro-invertebrate assemblages in two independent lagoons in the same geographic area. Results showed that BestAgg surrogates were effective in depicting multivariate patterns of macro-invertebrate assemblages as at species level over and beyond potential variations among the investigated lagoons. The use of families, following a more classic approach based on taxonomic sufficiency, also provided results comparable to those obtained using species. However, with respect to families, BestAgg surrogates allowed an estimated timesaving of 40% higher while still retaining an equivalent amount of information on species-level patterns. More importantly, BestAgg allowed exploiting different criteria of species aggregation, leading to a set of surrogates more aligned with ecological/functional characteristics of organisms, suggesting that BestAgg approach may provide a fresh perspective for optimizing trade-offs between pragmatism and the need for relevant ecological information in environmental assessment and monitoring.     

Taxonomic distinctness and species richness as measures of functional structure in bird assemblages

Most traditional "biodiversity" indices have an uncertain ecological interpretation, unfavourable sampling properties, and excessive data requirements. A new index of taxonomic distinctness (the average evolutionary distance between species in an assemblage) has many advantages over traditional measures, but its ecological interpretation remains unclear. We used published behavioural species data in conjunction with bird atlas data to quantify simple functional metrics (the fraction of species engaged in non-competitive interactions, and the average between-species disparity in habitat preferences) for breeding-bird assemblages in Europe and North America. We then analysed correlations of functional metrics with taxonomic distinctness and species richness, respectively. All functional metrics had weak, positive correlations with species richness. In contrast, correlations between functional metrics and taxonomic distinctness ranged from slightly negative to strongly positive, depending on the relative habitat heterogeneity, and on the resource involved in the between-species interaction. Strong positive correlations between taxonomic distinctness and the fraction of interactive species occurred for resources with few producer species per consumer species, and we suggest that taxonomic distinctness is consistently correlated with conservation worth. With its favourable sampling properties and data requirements, this taxonomic distinctness measure is a promising tool for biodiversity research and for environmental monitoring and management.     

Index of size distribution (ISD): a method of quality assessment for coastal lagoons

A new index was developed as a tool for quantifying the degree of disturbance in lagoons in order to meet the objective of Ecological Quality Status (EcoQ), using the zoobenthos quality element. The Index of Size distribution (ISD) is proposed to assess the ecological quality status of coastal lagoons. It represents the skewness of the distribution of individuals of a benthic community in geometric size (biomass) classes. The ISD was applied in three coastal lagoons with different levels of disturbance and classified them as of good, moderate and poor ecological quality. A scheme for the classification of EcoQ in lagoonal systems is presented. The index showed a strong relationship with the percentage of organic carbon in the sediment, as well as with the dissolved oxygen concentrations. ISD having the advantage of good discriminating power and not demanding high taxonomic resolution, could be a simple and promising tool to be further applied and tested in Mediterranean lagoons.     

Measuring ecosystem degradation through half a century of fish species introductions and extirpations in a large isolated lake

The introduction of exotic species and the extirpation of native species that occurred during the past two centuries have strongly modified the structure of most plant and animal assemblages across the globe. Such a biotic change is particularly marked in isolated environments such as islands or isolated lakes. Most studies reported drastic changes between before and after human disturbances, but the dynamics of change in assemblage structure through the invasion and extirpation processes are rarely reported. Here we measured the aquatic ecosystem degradation through exotic species introduction and native species extirpation experienced by Lake Erhai (China) during the last 50 years using structural, functional and taxonomic distinctness biodiversity indices. Structural diversity (species richness) did not varied monotonically along the temporal gradient, due to an opposite trend between exotic species increase and a concomitant decline of native species richness. Functional diversity displayed unclear ascending trends driven by the introduction of exotic species having distinct functional traits than natives. Taxonomic distinctness indices exhibited an increase of the average taxonomic distinctness (Δ⁺), but a decrease of the variation in taxonomic distinctness (Λ⁺) through time. Structural, functional and distinctness indices providing complementary information on ecosystem degradation, we here proposed a new multifaceted degradation index integrating these three facets of biodiversity. Such an index provided an accurate representation of the faunistic changes experienced by Lake Erhai and might constitute a comprehensive way to measure ecosystem degradation through exotic fish species introductions and native fish species extirpations.     

Increasing variation in taxonomic distinctness reveals clusters of specialists in the deep sea

Changes in biodiversity with latitude or along a given environmental gradient have been described in many studies, including for marine ecosystems. Currently there is no scientific consensus, however, regarding macroecological patterns of diversity vs depth. Here, we describe variation in the biodiversity of fishes along a depth gradient from 0 to 2000 m in the region of the Norfolk Ridge and Lord Howe Rise (Western Pacific), using data obtained during the NORFANZ voyage. We modelled α diversity (richness), β diversity (using Jaccard's coefficient), evenness, taxonomic distinctness and taxonomic resemblances among fish communities. Although α diversity did not change appreciably with depth, β diversity decreased significantly in deeper strata. Both taxonomic resemblances and Jaccard similarities diminished with depth, indicating convergence in community structure. In addition, average taxonomic distinctness showed no clear pattern with depth, but taxonomic trees constructed among species within deeper samples had more variable path‐lengths than those in shallower samples. The presence of taxonomically distinct clusters of highly related species at depth indicates specialised niches that have developed in a relatively extreme (dark, pressurized) yet stable environment. We propose that reduced β diversity and increased variation in taxonomic distinctness might serve as indicators of ecological communities living in harsh environments – a hypothesis that should be tested in other systems, such as deserts, high altitudes or latitudes.     

Taxonomic distinctness along nutrient gradients: More diverse,less diverse or not different from random?

Taxonomic distinctness indices are a family of anthropogenic stress indicators that have been used widely in marine ecosystems; however, their utility in freshwater ecosystems is still unclear. We used two taxonomic distinctness indices and species richness to assess relationships between nutrient gradients and three freshwater taxonomic groups, including diatoms, macrophytes and invertebrates. We found that the indices based on the three organismal groups showed generally rather clear relationships with the nutrient levels, indicating that these indices may bring useful additional information for the purposes of bioassessment. However, the two indices describing taxonomic distinctness showed opposite patterns in relation to nutrient levels. The indices for the three groups of organisms were generally poorly correlated with each other, showing that different organismal groups react differently to anthropogenic stress. Accordingly, taxonomic distinctness indices likely tell us about various aspects of nutrient enrichment of freshwater ecosystems. Our findings also emphasized that the value of these indices may be largely dependent on the organismal group used.     

Biodiversity,biogeography, and connectivity of polychaetes in the world's largest marine minerals exploration frontier

Aim

The abyssal Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), Pacific Ocean, is an area of commercial importance owing to the growing interest in mining high-grade polymetallic nodules at the seafloor for battery metals. Research into the spatial patterns of faunal diversity, composition, and population connectivity is needed to better understand the ecological impacts of potential resource extraction. Here, a DNA taxonomy approach is used to investigate regional-scale patterns of taxonomic and phylogenetic alpha and beta diversity, and genetic connectivity, of the dominant macrofaunal group (annelids) across a 6 million km² region of the abyssal seafloor.

Location

The abyssal seafloor (3932–5055 m depth) of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, equatorial Pacific Ocean.

Methods

We used a combination of new and published barcode data to study 1866 polychaete specimens using molecular species delimitation. Both phylogenetic and taxonomic alpha and beta diversity metrics were used to analyse spatial patterns of biodiversity. Connectivity analyses were based on haplotype distributions for a subset of the studied taxa.

Results

DNA taxonomy identified 291–314 polychaete species from the COI and 16S datasets respectively. Taxonomic and phylogenetic beta diversity between sites were relatively high and mostly explained by lineage turnover. Over half of pairwise comparisons were more phylogenetically distinct than expected based on their taxonomic diversity. Connectivity analyses in abundant, broadly distributed taxa suggest an absence of genetic structuring driven by geographical location.

Main Conclusions

Species diversity in abyssal Pacific polychaetes is high relative to other deep-sea regions. Results suggest that environmental filtering, where the environment selects against certain species, may play a significant role in regulating spatial patterns of biodiversity in the CCZ. A core group of widespread species have diverse haplotypes but are well connected over broad distances. Our data suggest that the high environmental and faunal heterogeneity of the CCZ should be considered in future policy decisions.     

How to choose a biodiversity indicator – Redundancy and complementarity of biodiversity metrics in a freshwater ecosystem

A range of biodiversity metrics are available to assess the ecological integrity of aquatic ecosystems. However, performance varies considerably among different types of metrics and provides different information regarding ecosystem conditions, thus making difficult the selection of appropriate metrics for biomonitoring. The present study evaluated the robustness of six biodiversity metrics to assess environmental change and determine their utility as relevant indicators of ecosystem biodiversity and functionality. Traditional metrics such as species richness and Shannon diversity were considered along with alternative metrics such as functional diversity, size diversity and taxonomic distinctness. To that end, invertebrate assemblages in a river floodplain were used as a case study to evaluate the performance of metrics using Generalized Additive Models (GAM). GAM explained between eight and 49% of the variability in biodiversity. The regression models exhibited differences in the response of biodiversity indicators to environmental factors, suggesting that intermediate levels of turbidity and low salinity are conditions favouring increased biodiversity in the study area. Based on correlations among metrics and responses to primary environmental factors, it is concluded that Shannon and functional diversity, and rarefied species richness generated similar information regarding ecosystem conditions (i.e., the metrics were redundant); while size diversity and distinctness provided useful additional data characterizing ecosystem quality (i.e., the metrics were complementary). Functional diversity indicated not only number and dominance of species, but also each species functional role in the community, and was therefore the most informative biodiversity metric. Nevertheless, the use of a combination of metrics, for example functional and size diversity, and variation in taxonomic distinctness, provides complementary data that will serve to achieve a more thorough understanding of ecosystem structure and function, and response to primary environmental influences.