Spatio-temporal patterns of co-occurrence in fish assemblages in a tropical stream, southwestern Amazon
Assembly of communities.
Ichthyofauna.
Null models.
Landscape.
The structure of a community is influenced by deterministic and/or stochastic processes, generating organized or random patterns. We evaluated space-time patterns of cooccurrence of a fish assemblage in an Amazonian stream and the influence of abiotic factors (physical-chemical variables and hydrological period). We verified whether species with greater similarity in tolerance to physical-chemical variables tend to have greater cooccurrence and the influence of abiotic and landscape factors on assemblage composition. Structuring was assessed using the C-Score index and null models. We estimated the “physical-chemical niche” by OMI and correlated with C-score data. We performed simple and multiple regressions between organization patterns and physical-chemical variables;
correlations between species and local environmental conditions and landscape; and partitioning of variation between predictor variables. The fish assemblage presented temporal, seasonal and space-time structure. On a local scale, most of the patterns were random. Species with different tolerances tend to have less co-occurrence in the dry period. Flood period and pH influence patterns of organization and anthropogenic impacts explain
random patterns. Landscape and local environmental variables influenced species composition, but landscape had a greater explanation.