Warming water and leaf litter quality but not plant origin drive decomposition and fungal diversity in an experiment.

The fungi associated with leaf litter play a key role in decomposition and can be affected both by the warming water and the invasion of non-native species in riparian vegetation. Warming water and invasion of non-native riparian species on stream fungal communities have been studied mainly in temperate ecosystems. We tested the effects of warming water and non-native plant Psidium guajava on leaf litter decomposition, conidia density, species richness and beta diversity of tropical stream fungi. Thus, we carried out an experiment using the current mean temperature of streams from northwestern Paraná in South Brazil (22 °C) and two temperatures above the current mean temperature (26 °C and 29 °C). We also used the leaves of a non-native plant (P. guajava), and two native plants (one of similar nutritional quality, and the other of higher nutritional quality than the non-native species) occurring in Neotropical streams riparian vegetation. Warming water accelerated leaf litter decomposition and reduced conidia density and fungal richness in native and non-native plants. However, species composition and beta diversity were not affected by water temperature. Our study showed that warming affects the fungi of streams, the main microorganisms responsible for decomposition and that the nutritional quality of the leaves may be more important than the origin of riparian plant species. Despite this, further investigations should be conducted on the interaction of P. guajava with the flow of nutrients in these environments and how it can affect other ecosystem processes and the food chain. Efforts to study the effects of water warming and biological invasion on the attributes and distribution of fungi in streams are vital, making them a tool for the conservation of riparian ecosystems.

Drivers of benthic metacommunity structure along tropical estuaries.

Community structure of many systems changes across space in many different ways (e.g., gradual, random or clumpiness). Accessing patterns of species spatial variation in ecosystems characterized by strong environmental gradients, such as estuaries, is essential to provide information on how species respond to them and for identification of potential underlying mechanisms. We investigated how environmental filters (i.e., strong environmental gradients that can include or exclude species in local communities), spatial predictors (i.e., geographical distance between communities) and temporal variations (e.g., different sampling periods) influence benthic macroinfaunal metacommunity structure along salinity gradients in tropical estuaries. We expected environmental filters to explain the highest proportion of total variation due to strong salinity and sediment gradients, and the main structure indicating species displaying individualistic response that yield a continuum of gradually changing composition (i.e., Gleasonian structure). First we identified benthic community structures in three estuaries at Todos os Santos Bay in Bahia, Brazil. Then we used variation partitioning to quantify the influences of environmental, spatial and temporal predictors on the structures identified. More frequently, the benthic metacommunity fitted a quasi-nested pattern with total variation explained by the shared influence of environmental and spatial predictors, probably because of ecological gradients (i.e., salinity decreases from sea to river). Estuarine benthic assemblages were quasi-nested likely for two reasons: first, nested subsets are common in communities subjected to disturbances such as one of our estuarine systems; second, because most of the estuarine species were of marine origin, and consequently sites closer to the sea would be richer while those more distant from the sea would be poorer subsets.

Partitioning beta diversity of aquatic Oligochaeta in different environments of a Neotropical floodplain / Partição da diversidade beta de Oligochaeta aquático em diferentes ambientes de uma planície de inundação neotropical

We tested the hypothesis that the contribution of the nestedness component is higher in environments with more similar features (lentic or lotic), whereas the contribution of the turnover component is higher in environments with more dissimilar features (lotic vs. lentic). To this end, we partitioned beta diversity of the Oligochaeta community into 12 environments of the Upper Paraná River floodplain. We recorded 986 individuals of 17 taxa. Through Redundancy Analysis, we observed a differentiation between lentic and lotic habitats both by environmental features as species composition. Our hypothesis was partially supported, because in environments with more similar hydrological characteristics, we observed a greater contribution of the nestedness component only in lentic environments, whereas in lotic environments, the turnover component showed a higher value. Moreover, when analyzed the different environments (lentic vs. lotic), we noticed a very similar contribution of both components. Some species were more frequent, as A. pigueti and P. americana, while others were exclusive to some environments (N. bonettoi and H. aedeochaeta). We evidenced the importance of each component in structuring Oligochaeta community, nonetheless, in a different way between environments with more similar (nestedness to lentic and turnover to lotic) or dissimilar (almost the same contribution of both) features.

Nós testamos a hipótese de que a contribuição do componente aninhamento é maior em ambientes com características hidrológicas semelhantes (lênticos ou lóticos), enquanto o componente turnover é maior em ambientes com características mais diferentes (lótico vs. lêntico). Para tal, particionamos a diversidade beta da comunidade de Oligochaeta entre 12 ambientes da planície de inundação do alto rio Paraná. Registramos 986 indivíduos, consistindo em 17 táxons. Por meio da Análise de Redundância, observamos uma diferenciação entre ambientes lênticos e lóticos, tanto pelos fatores ambientais como também pelas espécies. Nossa hipótese foi parcialmente corroborada uma vez que em relação aos ambientes com características mais similares, observamos maior contribuição do componente aninhamento apenas nos ambientes lênticos, enquanto nos ambientes lóticos, o componente turnover foi maior. Ainda, ao analisarmos os ambientes mais diferentes, notamos uma contribuição muito semelhante de ambos os componentes. Algumas espécies foram mais frequentes, como A. pigueti e P. americana, enquanto outras foram exclusivas de alguns ambientes (N. bonettoi e H. aedeochaeta). Nós evidenciamos a importância de cada componente na estruturação da comunidade de Oligochaeta, no entanto, de uma forma diferente entre os ambientes com características mais semelhantes (aninhamento para lênticos e turnover para lóticos) ou diferentes (contribuição semelhante de ambos).