Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A metacommunity ecological approach to understanding the community organization of fish in artificial ponds of the Mamoré River floodplain in the Amazonian lowlands of Bolivia

  • Published:
Environmental Biology of Fishes Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The origin and maintenance of biodiversity and the influence of human activities on biodiversity are issues of central interest to scientists as well as policymakers. We conceptualized the integration of metacommunity paradigms across space and time to better understand the community organization of fish under the hydrological control mechanisms of large river floodplains. In our analysis of variation partitioning and functional ecology, patchy dynamics and mass effects represent special cases of species-sorting paradigms generated by neutral processes in certain species, and the relative roles of neutral processes and local adaptations may increase along with the spatio-temporal extent. The effect of flood event timing, floodplain elevation and vegetation cover on species abundance determined the distribution of seasonal patchy heterogeneous habitats. Spatio-temporal structures were observed among patches of the same habitat types across years but within habitat patches in the same year. The convergence of life history traits and respiratory modes of species associated with different habitat types was not significant, and traits could present overall seasonality within patches and segregation among patches of the same habitat types across years. Furthermore, the similarity of these traits was explained by phylogenetic relationships. At the spatio-temporal scale of the present study, the origin of lineage-specific allometric effects in fish, the origin of habitat specialization and their consequences for metacommunity dynamics were not clear. These results are most likely related to species-sorting processes, in which the species adapted to a specific type of habitat ex situ subsequently colonized an area after it was altered via human activities.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Albert JS, Carvalho TP (2011) Neogene assembly of modern faunas. In: Albert JS, Reis RE (eds) Historical biogeography of neotropical freshwater fishes. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 119–136

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Albert JS, Bart HL Jr, Reis RE (2011) Species richness and cladal diversity. In: Albert JS, Reis RE (eds) Historical biogeography of neotropical freshwater fishes. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 89–104

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Blanchet FG, Legendre P, Borcard D (2008) Forward selection of explanatory variables. Ecology 89:2623–2632

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Borcard D, Legendre P (2002) All-scale spatial analysis of ecological data by means of principal coordinates of neighbor matrices. Ecol Model 153:51–68

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borcard D, Legendre P, Avois-Jacquet C, Tuomisto H (2004) Dissecting the spatial structure of ecological data at multiple scales. 85: 1826–1832

  • Borcard D, Legendre P, Gillet F (2011) Numerical ecology with R. Springer Science & Business Media, NY, pp 227–292

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chambers JM (2013) SoDA: Functions and Examples for "Software for Data Analysis" (R package version 1.0–6)

  • Corbin D, Guyot J, Calle H, Quintanilla J (1988) Datos físico-químicos de los medios acuáticos de la zona del Mamoré central: región de Trinidad—Amazonía boliviana, Informe Científico No.8, Convenio ORSTOM – UTB – CORDEBENI, Trinidad – Bolivia

  • Costa WJEM (2011) Phylogenetic position and taxonomic status of Anablepsoides, Atlantirivulus, Cynodonichthys, Laimosemion and Melanorivulus (Cyprinodontiformes: Rivulidae). Ichthyol Explor Freshwaters 22:233–249

    Google Scholar 

  • Cottenie K (2005) Integrating environmental and spatial processes in ecological community dynamics. Ecol Lett 8:1175–1182

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Crampton WGR (2011) An ecological perspective on diversity and distributions. In: Albert JS, Reis RE (eds) Historical biogeography of neotropical freshwater fishes. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 165–189

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • De Bie T, De Meester L, Brendonck L, Martens K, Goddeeris B, Ercken D, Hampel H, Denys L, Vanhecke L, Van der Gucht K, Van Wichelen J, Vyverman W, Declerck SAJ (2012) Body size and dispersal mode as key traits determining metacommunity structure of aquatic organisms. Ecol Lett 15:740–747

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Debastiani VJ (2014) SYNCSA: Analysis of functional and phylogenetic patterns in metacommunities (R package version 13.2)

  • Debastiani VJ, Pillar VD (2012) SYNCSA—R tool for analysis of metacommunities based on functional traits and phylogeny of the community components. Bioinformatics 25:2067–2068

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Declerck SAJ, Coronel JS, Legendre P, Brendonck L (2011) Scale dependency of processes structuring metacommunities of cladocerans in temporary pools of high-Andes wetlands. Ecography 34:296–305

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diniz-Filho JAF, Siqueira T, Padial AA, Rangel TF, Landeiro VL, Bini LM (2012) Spatial autocorrelation analysis allows disentangling the balance between neutral and niche processes in metacommunities. Oikos 121:201–210

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Don Stevens E, Holeton GF (1978) The partitioning of oxygen uptake from air and from water by erythrinids. Can J Zool 56:965–969

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dray S, Legendre P, Blanchet FG (2009) packfor: Forward Selection with Permutation (Canoco p.46) (R package version 0.0–7 / r58)

  • Duponchelle F, Lino F, Hubert N, Panfili J, Renno JF, Baras E, Torrico JP, Dugue R, Nuñez J (2007) Environment-related life-history trait variations of the red-bellied piranha Pygocentrus nattereri in two river basins of the Bolivian Amazon. J Fish Biol 71:1113–1134

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eklund A (2016) beeswarm: The Bee Swarm Plot, an Alternative to Stripchart (R package version 0.2.3)

  • Eschmeyer WN, Fricke R, van der Laan R (2016) Catalog of fishes: genera, species, references. Electronic versión. http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp. Accessed 1 March 2016

  • Fernandes IM, Henriques-Silva R, Penha J, Zuanon J, Peres-Neto PR (2014) Spatiotemporal dynamics in a seasonal metacommunity structure is predictable: the case of floodplain-fish communities. Ecography 37(5):464–475

    Google Scholar 

  • Gayanilo Jr. FC, Sparre P, Pauly D (2006) FAO-ICLARM stock assessment tools II revised versión User’s guide. FAO computerized information series (fisheries)

  • Giraudoux P (2017) Pgirmess: Data Analysis in Ecology (R package version 16.7)

  • Heino J, Melo A, Siqueira T, Soininen J, Valanko S, Bini AM (2014) Metacommunity organisation, spatial extent and dispersal in aquatic systems: patterns, processes and prospects. Freshw Biol

  • Hubbell SP (2001) The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography. Princeton University Press

  • Hutchinson GE (1957) Concluding remarks. Cold Spring Harbor Symp Quant Biol 22:415–427

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ICES (2008) Report of the workshop on maturity ogive estimation for stock assessment (WKMOG). 3–6 June 2008, Lisbon, Portugal

  • Ickes BS, Vallazza J, Kalas J, Knights B (2005) River floodplain connectivity and lateral fish passage: a literature review. U.S. geological survey – Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center

  • Junk WJ, Bayley PB, Sparks RE (1989) The flood pulse concept in river-floodplain systems. In: Dodge DP (ed) Proceedings of the international large river symposium, pp 110–127

  • Langenheder S, Berga M, Östman Ö, Székely AJ (2012) Temporal variation of β-diversity and assembly mechanisms in a bacterial metacommunity. ISME J 6:1107–1114

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lee K (1997) Apuntes sobre las obras hidrauclicas prehispánicas de las llanuras de Moxos. In Paititi, Año 11. Casa de la Cultura de Beni y Pando, Trinidad: 24–26

  • Legendre P, Gallagher ED (2001) Ecologically meaningful transformations for ordination of species data. Oecologia 129:271–280

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Legendre P, Gauthier O (2014) Statistical methods for temporal and space-time analysis of community composition data. Proc R Soc B Biol Sci 281:20132728–20132728

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Legendre P, De Cáceres M, Borcard D (2010) Community surveys through space and time: testing the space–time interaction in the absence of replication. Ecology 91:262–272

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Legendre P, Borcard D, Blanchet FG, Dray S (2012) PCNM: MEM spatial eigenfunction and principal coordinate analyses (R package version 2.1–2)

  • Leibold MA, Holyoak M, Mouquet N, Amarasekare P, Chase JM, Hoopes MF, Holt RD, Shurin JB, Law R, Tilman D, Loreau M, Gonzalez A (2004) The metacommunity concept: a framework for multi-scale community ecology. Ecol Lett 7:601–613

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Logue JB, Mouquet N, Peter H, Hillebrand H, The Metacommunity Working Group (2011) Empirical approaches to metacommunities: a review and comparison with theory. Trends Ecol Evol 26:482–491

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lopez-Fernandez H, Albert JS (2011) Paleogene radiations. In: Albert JS, Reis RE (eds) Historical biogeography of neotropical freshwater fishes. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 105–117

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Loubens G, Aquim J (1986) Sexualidad y reproducción de los principales peces de la cuenca del río Mamoré, Beni – Bolivia. Informe Científico No.5. Convenio ORSTOM - U.T.B. - CORDEBENI, Trinidad – Bolivia

  • Lundberg JG (1998) The temporal context for the diversification of Neotropical fishes. In: Malabarba LR, Reis RE, Vari RP, Lucena ZMS, Lucena CAS (eds) Phylogeny and Clasification of Neotropical fishes, pp 49–68

    Google Scholar 

  • Lundberg JG, Marshall LG, Guerrero BH, Malabarba MCSL, Wesselingh F (1998) The stage of Neotropical fish diversification: a historiy of tropical south American rivers. In: Malabarba LR, Reis RE, Vari RP, Lucena ZMS, Lucena CAS (eds) Phylogeny and Clasification of Neotropical fishes, pp 13–48

    Google Scholar 

  • Ng ISY, Carr CM, Cottenie K (2009) Hierarchical zooplankton metacommunities: distinguishing between high and limiting dispersal mechanisms. Hydrobiologia 619:133–143

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oksanen J (2017) Design decisions and implementation details in vegan. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/vegan/vignettes/decision-vegan.pdf

  • Oksanen J, Blanchet FG, Kindt R, Legendre P, Minchin PR, O'Hara RB, Simpson GL, Solymos P, Stevens MHH, Wagner H (2016) vegan: Community Ecology Package (R package version 2.3–4)

  • Omernik JM (1987) Ecoregion of the conterminous United States. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 77(1):118–125

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ovando A, Tomasella J, Rodriguez DA, Martinez JM, Siqueira-Junior JL, Pinto GLN, Passy P, Vauchel P, Noriega L, Randow v C (2016) Extreme flood events in the Bolivian Amazon wetlands. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies 5:293–308

    Google Scholar 

  • Padial AA, Ceschin F, Declerck SAJ, De Meester L, Bonecker CC, Lansac-Tôha FA, Rodrigues L, Rodrigues LC, Train S, Velho LFM, Bini LM (2014) Dispersal ability determines the role of Environmental,Spatial and temporal drivers of Metacommunity structure. PLoS One 9(10):e111227. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111227

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Paradis E, Blomberg S, Bolker B, Claude J, Cuong HS, Desper R, Didier G, Durand B, Dutheil J, Gascuel O, Heibl C, Ives A, Lawson D, Lefort V, Legendre P, Lemon J, McCloskey R, Nylander J, Opgen-Rhein R, Popescu AA, Royer-Carenzi M, Schliep K, Strimmer K, De Vienne D (2015) ape: Analyses of Phylogenetics and Evolution (R package version 3.4)

  • Peres-Neto PR, Legendre P (2010) Estimating and controlling for spatial structure in the study of ecological communities. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 19:174–184

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piana PA, Gomes LC, Cortez EM (2006) Factors influencing Serrapinnus notomelas (Characiformes: Characidae) populations in upper Paraná river floodplain lagoons. Neotrop Ichthyol 4:81–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pianka ER (1970) On r- and K-selection. Am Nat 104:592–597

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pillar VD, Duarte LS (2010) A framework for metacommunity analysis of phylogenetic structure. Ecol Lett 13:587–596

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pillar VD, Duarte LS, Sosinski EE, Joner F (2009) Discriminating trait-convergence and trait-divergence assembly patterns in ecological community gradients. J Veg Sci 20:334–348

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pouilly M, Rodriguez MA (2004) Determinism of fish assemblage structure in neotropical floodplain lakes: influence of internal and landscape lake conditions. In: Proceedings of the second international symposium on the management of large rivers for fisheries, Vol. 2, pp 243–265

  • R Development Core Team (2016) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing (3.3.0). R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Available at: http://www.R-project.org. Last accessed 3 May 2016

  • Reis RE, Kullander SO, Ferraris Jr. CJ (2003) Check list of the freshwater fishes of South and Central America. Edipucrs, Porto Alegre

  • Schneider CA, Rasband WS, Eliceiri KW (2012) NIH image to imagej: 25 years of image analysis. Nat Methods 9:671–675

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Stearns SC (1992) The evolution of life histories. Oxford University Press, London, pp 91–114

    Google Scholar 

  • Turko AJ, Wright PA (2015) Evolution, ecology and physiology of amphibious killifishes (Cyprinodontiformes). J Fish Biol 87:815–835

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Urban MC, Leibold MA, Amarasekare P, De Meester L, Gomulkiewicz R, Hochberg ME, Klausmeier CA, Loeuille N, De Mazancourt C, Norberg J, Pantel JH, Strauss SY, Vellend M, Wade MJ (2008) The evolutionary ecology of metacommunities. Trends Ecol Evol 23:311–317

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Vari RP, Weitzman SH (1990) A review of the phylogenetic biogeography of the freshwater fishes of South America. In: Peters G and Hutterer R (ed) vertebrates in the. tropics:381–393

  • Welcomme RL (1992) Pesca fluvial. FAO Documento Técnico de Pesca 262

  • Winegardner AK, Jones BK, Ng ISYT, Siqueira T, Cottenie K (2012) The terminology of metacommunity ecology. Trends Ecol Evol 27:253–254

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Winemiller KO (1989) Patterns of variation in life history among south American fishes in seasonal environments. Oecologia 81:225–241

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Yunoki T, Torres LV (2016) Fish metacommunity dynamics in the patchy heterogeneous habitats of varzea lakes, turbid river channels and transparent clear and black water bodies in the Amazonian lowlands of Bolivia. Environ Biol Fish 99:391–408

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yunoki T, Torres LV, Pouilly M, Hablützel PI (2017) Comunidades ictícolas en diferentes tipos de aguas, Amazonía boliviana. Dissertation, I Congreso boliviano de ictiología. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320716009_Comunidades_icticolas_en_diferentes_tipos_de_aguas_Amazonia_boliviana?isFromSharing=1

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank José Pedro Moreno, Socrates Pinheiro and Alfredo Parada for their help during the field campaigns. Anonymous reviewers provided detailed comments on the manuscript and updated references related to metacommunity frameworks. Advice from Marc Pouilly, Pascal I. Hablützel, Michel Jégu, Fernando Carvajal-Vallejos, Jean-François Renno and Thierry Oberdorff motivated our philosophy of community organization. We thank our colleagues Daniel Bogado, Tania Araujo, Federico Moreno, Dennis Lizarro and the authorities at UAB for their moral support. This study was conducted with permission from the Agricultural Service Department of Beni (Servicio Departamental Agropecuapia, Gobierno Autónomo del Beni) and is in accordance with the regulations of fisheries and aquaculture (reglamento de pesca y acuicultura) and the 1654 law of administrative decentralization, Plurinational State of Bolivia (ley No. 1654 decentralización administrativa, Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Investigación de Recursos Acuáticos, Universidad Autónoma del Beni, José Ballivián (CIRA-UAB), Trinidad, Beni, Bolivia

    Takayuki Yunoki, Luis V. Torres & Reinaldo B. Cholima

Authors
  1. Takayuki Yunoki
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Luis V. Torres
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Reinaldo B. Cholima
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Takayuki Yunoki.

Electronic supplementary material

Online Resource 1

Geographic coordinates (decimal degrees; WGS84), surface area (m2) and depth (cm) of the eight artificial ponds measured during the low water level in September 2010 (MS Excel) (XLS 25 kb)

Online Resource 2

Sampling date, environmental data, and surface area sampled via seine (m2) for 96 samples during two years of hydrologic cycles in the eight artificial ponds (MS Excel) (XLS 35.5 kb)

Online Resource 3

List of species and their corresponding phylogenetically independent clades of the Neotropical ichthyological region (IC) with ages of the stem lineages (in Ma) collected during the field surveys (MS Excel) (XLS 38 kb)

Online Resource 4

Fish abundance (in number of individuals) and biomass data (g) for 96 samples during two annual hydrologic cycles for eight artificial ponds and a list of reference specimens (MS Excel) (XLS 109 kb)

Online Resource 5

Original reproductive biology data of fish collected during the field surveys (MS Excel) (XLS 1.65 mb)

Online Resource 6

Species traits of fish collected during the field surveys. Data collection and parameter estimation procedures follow the guidelines of the ICES (2008); and a list of references is also provided (MS Excel) (XLS 32.5 kb)

Online Resource 7

Phylogenetic dissimilarity of fish collected during the field surveys (MS Excel) (XLS 32 kb)

Online Resource 8

Spatio-temporal and fish density (FD, grm−2) variables constructed in this study and sequences of variable selection: a) overall model, b) fine-scale model within seasonal habitat patches, and c) broad-scale model among seasonal patches of the same habitat type across years (MS Excel) (XLS 198 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Yunoki, T., Torres, L.V. & Cholima, R.B. A metacommunity ecological approach to understanding the community organization of fish in artificial ponds of the Mamoré River floodplain in the Amazonian lowlands of Bolivia. Environ Biol Fish 101, 1329–1341 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-018-0780-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-018-0780-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation