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Relative Importance of Biotic and Abiotic Forces on the Composition and Dynamics of a Soft-Sediment Intertidal Community
Top-down, bottom-up, middle-out and abiotic factors are usually viewed as main forces structuring biological communities, although assessment of their relative importance, in a single study, is rarely done. We quantified, using multivariate methods, associations between abiotic and biotic (top-down,...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4720360/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26790098 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147098 |
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author | Gerwing, Travis G. Drolet, David Hamilton, Diana J. Barbeau, Myriam A. |
author_facet | Gerwing, Travis G. Drolet, David Hamilton, Diana J. Barbeau, Myriam A. |
author_sort | Gerwing, Travis G. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Top-down, bottom-up, middle-out and abiotic factors are usually viewed as main forces structuring biological communities, although assessment of their relative importance, in a single study, is rarely done. We quantified, using multivariate methods, associations between abiotic and biotic (top-down, bottom-up and middle-out) variables and infaunal population/community variation on intertidal mudflats in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, over two years. Our analysis indicated that spatial structural factors like site and plot accounted for most of the community and population variation. Although we observed a significant relationship between the community/populations and the biotic and abiotic variables, most were of minor importance relative to the structural factors. We suggest that community and population structure were relatively uncoupled from the structuring influences of biotic and abiotic factors in this system because of high concentrations of resources that sustain high densities of infauna and limit exploitative competition. Furthermore, we hypothesize that the infaunal community primarily reflects stochastic spatial events, namely a “first come, first served” process. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4720360 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-47203602016-01-30 Relative Importance of Biotic and Abiotic Forces on the Composition and Dynamics of a Soft-Sediment Intertidal Community Gerwing, Travis G. Drolet, David Hamilton, Diana J. Barbeau, Myriam A. PLoS One Research Article Top-down, bottom-up, middle-out and abiotic factors are usually viewed as main forces structuring biological communities, although assessment of their relative importance, in a single study, is rarely done. We quantified, using multivariate methods, associations between abiotic and biotic (top-down, bottom-up and middle-out) variables and infaunal population/community variation on intertidal mudflats in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, over two years. Our analysis indicated that spatial structural factors like site and plot accounted for most of the community and population variation. Although we observed a significant relationship between the community/populations and the biotic and abiotic variables, most were of minor importance relative to the structural factors. We suggest that community and population structure were relatively uncoupled from the structuring influences of biotic and abiotic factors in this system because of high concentrations of resources that sustain high densities of infauna and limit exploitative competition. Furthermore, we hypothesize that the infaunal community primarily reflects stochastic spatial events, namely a “first come, first served” process. Public Library of Science 2016-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC4720360/ /pubmed/26790098 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147098 Text en © 2016 Gerwing et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Gerwing, Travis G. Drolet, David Hamilton, Diana J. Barbeau, Myriam A. Relative Importance of Biotic and Abiotic Forces on the Composition and Dynamics of a Soft-Sediment Intertidal Community |
title | Relative Importance of Biotic and Abiotic Forces on the Composition and Dynamics of a Soft-Sediment Intertidal Community |
title_full | Relative Importance of Biotic and Abiotic Forces on the Composition and Dynamics of a Soft-Sediment Intertidal Community |
title_fullStr | Relative Importance of Biotic and Abiotic Forces on the Composition and Dynamics of a Soft-Sediment Intertidal Community |
title_full_unstemmed | Relative Importance of Biotic and Abiotic Forces on the Composition and Dynamics of a Soft-Sediment Intertidal Community |
title_short | Relative Importance of Biotic and Abiotic Forces on the Composition and Dynamics of a Soft-Sediment Intertidal Community |
title_sort | relative importance of biotic and abiotic forces on the composition and dynamics of a soft-sediment intertidal community |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4720360/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26790098 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147098 |
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