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Contributed Talk

Session: : Wetlands 1

COS 272-4 - Does the similar hydrology of temporary wetlands lead to convergence in macroinvertebrate composition, diversity, and traits across climatic zones?

Thursday, August 10, 2023
10:45 AM – 11:00 AM PDT
Location: E145
Abstract: In aquatic habitats, hydrology is critically important in shaping community structure and composition, both in terms of taxa and trait assemblages. However, most existing evidence for the importance of hydrology comes from local scale comparisons of habitats with very different hydrologic regimes (e.g. comparing ephemeral versus permanent wetlands, or across a permanence gradient). The Great Plains of the central United States offer an immense geographic area with thousands of ephemeral wetlands and potential for overlap in community composition. Given this vast system of wetlands sharing similar filling and drying cycles, we asked: “do similar hydrological conditions lead to convergence in macroinvertebrate communities, even across different climatic zones?” We approached this question by comparing community-level indices (taxonomic diversity, taxa richness, taxonomic evenness, and functional richness), as well as community taxonomic and functional structure and composition in groups of temporary wetlands in central North Dakota (2021, 2022), southwestern Kansas (2021), southern New Mexico (2021, 2022), and the coastal bend of Texas (2021). Overall, we found taxonomic composition to be very different between all regions and between years in North Dakota. However, despite highly dissimilar taxonomic composition, community-level indices and trait composition only showed significant differences for samples taken in 2021 from North Dakota. There is evidence that the variation in the North Dakota 2021 samples from the rest of the communities may be the result of temporary connection to more permanent wetlands before sampling occurred or atypical drought conditions. Overall this study provides evidence that similar hydrological regimes shape wetland macroinvertebrate communities toward trait and diversity convergence, but not taxonomic composition alone. This work further informs our understanding of the importance of hydrology in shaping community assembly in ephemeral wetlands.