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The role of trait-based approaches in understanding stream fish assemblages

Authors :
Jayson Beugly
Lance R. Williams
Stephen J. Jacquemin
Mark Pyron
Source :
Freshwater Biology. 56:1579-1592
Publication Year :
2011
Publisher :
Wiley, 2011.

Abstract

SUMMARY 1. The use of trait-based approaches to examine the ecology of stream fish assemblages is increasing. However, selection of traits that will be useful in testing spatial or temporal hypotheses about ecological organisation is currently limited by availability of data, rather than empirical evaluation. 2. We analysed two data sets of stream fish assemblages to compare taxonomy and traitbased approaches. The Wabash River temporal data set is based on 25 years of boat electrofishing collections over a 230-km river distance. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management data set of stream collections in the state of Indiana was selected to represent a spatial database. We compared several trait-based approaches: reproductive guilds, life history variables, biomonitoring metrics, ecosystem-based functional guilds and feeding and ecosystem interaction guilds. 3. Analyses of fish assemblages that are designed to detect how environmental variation structures fish assemblages can expect similar results using taxonomic or trait-based approaches. Results of trait-based approaches will vary according to the spatial extent of the region and the number of unique entities of trait groups for a given data set. However, taxonomic analyses accounted for more variation than any trait-based analyses.

Details

ISSN :
00465070
Volume :
56
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Freshwater Biology
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........1c621d0d49f589afaea699c28e2cd33b
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2427.2011.02596.x