Abstract
Context
Urbanization-induced environmental changes are key causes of community disassembly in freshwater systems. Given that species’ traits are closely linked to environmental tolerances, trait-based approaches allow predicting ecological community responses to urbanization. These responses are typically mediated by a suite of traits of organisms (i.e., trait combinations). Trait combinations reflect species’ functional strategies and potential fitness, and different taxa possessing the same trait combinations could respond similarly to stressors. To date, little is known about how urbanization restructures ecological communities from the perspective focusing on trait combinations.
Objectives
We aimed to explore how urbanization restructures ecological community patterns and underlying drivers through affecting different taxa with specific trait combinations.
Methods
We first proposed a functional grouping approach that centers on assigning the whole metacommunity into several homogeneous groups with similar trait combinations. We formed the groupings using hierarchical clustering analysis. We illustrated this approach using a dataset of river macroinvertebrates and multiple-scale environmental variables (i.e., local, land-use and spatial factors). Distance-based redundancy analysis and variation partitioning were used to quantify the roles of ecological drivers in structuring different groups.
Results
A total of six functional groups were identified from the metacommunity of 190 taxa. The relative abundance of two groups increased with the urbanization level (tolerant groups), while the others decreased (sensitive groups). Furthermore, local and land-use variables explained more of community variation for the sensitive groups, while the relative importance of spatial factors was stronger for the tolerant groups.
Conclusion
Our findings suggest that examining how urbanization reshapes ecological communities benefits from assigning the entire metacommunity into different functional groups. The identified functional groups exhibited different responses to urbanization and were shaped by different ecological drivers. We expected that the proposed functional group approach would provide new insights into mechanisms underlying community disassembly caused by urbanization.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Mr. Shun Huang for drawing figures in original-drift writing. We acknowledge Mr. Lei Liang and Mrs. Fanghua Wang for their help in field sampling. We thank Mr. Xin Wang (Analytical & Testing Center, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for assistance in data analysis.
Funding
This work was supported by the program “Shenzhen City under the grant of Aquatic Ecological Monitoring and Assessment for Major rivers” (No. 2019-07-233) and “Special Foundation for National Science and Technology Basic Research Program of China” (grant No. 2019FY101903). Jani Heino was supported by Grant No. 331957 from the Academy of Finland.
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ZL and ZX conceived the ideas and designed the methodology; ZL, TZ, YJ and YM collected the data; ZL and YG led manuscript conceptualization; ZL led data analysis and the writing of the manuscript; YG and WW assisted with analysis and interpretation of the data; JH, YC, YC, JZ and ZX revised the manuscript; all authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.
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Liu, Z., Heino, J., Ge, Y. et al. A refined functional group approach reveals novel insights into effects of urbanization on river macroinvertebrate communities. Landsc Ecol 38, 3791–3808 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01612-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01612-2