Local environmental conditions and loss of river–lake connection shape the ecological uniqueness of molluscan assemblages
Ren, L.; Zheng, P.; García-Girón, J.; Heino, J.; Jiang, X. (2025). Local environmental conditions and loss of river–lake connection shape the ecological uniqueness of molluscan assemblages. Hydrobiologia Online first. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10750-025-05920-3
In: Hydrobiologia. Springer: The Hague. ISSN 0018-8158; e-ISSN 1573-5117, more
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| Authors | | Top |
- Ren, L.
- Zheng, P.
- García-Girón, J.
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| Abstract |
This study focused on a lake dataset to explore the effects of river–lake disconnection on the relative contributions of sites (LCBD) and species (SCBD) to beta diversity of molluscan assemblages. We compared the relationship between LCBD and its two components (i.e., species replacement: ReplLCBD, and richness difference: RichDiffLCBD) with taxonomic richness (i.e., the number of total and rare species) between connected lakes (CLs) and disconnected lakes (DLs). We further identified key environmental variables driving LCBD and explored relationships of SCBD with species occupancy and functional features. Our results indicated that taxonomic richness and RichDiffLCBD were all significantly higher in CLs than in DLs, whereas ReplLCBD showed the opposite pattern. Moreover, the correlation between LCBD and taxonomic richness showed an opposite trend between CLs and DLs. In CLs, high ecological uniqueness was typically associated with high taxonomic richness. By contrast, severely impacted DLs were characterized by lower species richness and high LCBD values. Environmental factors associated with connectivity were most significant for ReplLCBD and RichDiffLCBD. Moreover, SCBD showed a hump-shaped relationship with species occupancy and was poorly explained by functional traits. In conclusion, understanding the determinants of LCBD and SCBD is important for addressing lake assessment, biological conservation and ecological restoration. |
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