Metacommunity dynamics of amphibians in years with

Authors: Attila L Péntek Csaba F Vad Katalin Zsuga Zsófia Horváth

Publish Date: 2016/09/06

Volume: 51, Issue: 1, Pages: 45-57

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Abstract

Many studies investigated the habitat preference and behaviour ecology of individual amphibian species while we know less about how their community assembly reflects changes in environmental factors including the role of climatic extremes Communitylevel studies also allow us to apply traitbased analyses that are crucial for a better understanding of the functioning of amphibian communities and metacommunities In two years with contrasting rainfall 2012 and 2013 we found amphibian species in 85 different waterbodies of a heterogeneous landscape in Central Europe Hungary Within the metacommunity framework the contributions of local landscape and spatial variables to community assembly were assessed We also measured the local extinction–colonisation rates in the ponds for all species between the two years To investigate the role of dispersal traits in explaining the spatial distribution of species we studied the relationship between body size and the pure spatial fraction of variation According to our results the main drivers were the same in both the dry and wet year but their relative contribution changed Local variables played a predominant role in the assembly of the amphibian metacommunity Spatial signals were more evident in the dry year This implies not only the adverse effect of decreased connectivity due to the drying out of several habitats but also a loss of breeding sites for the studied amphibians Local colonisation rates were higher in primarily terrestrial species Hyla arborea Pelobates fuscus Bufo bufo which only visit ponds during breeding We found a negative relationship between the pure spatial effect and body size suggesting an increased level of dispersal limitation in smallbodied species Our results showed that while the strength and relative role of local and spatial processes changed between years the role of dispersal traits in explaining the spatial distribution of species was similar Specialisation to different habitats seems to be a major process in determining vertebrate metacommunities in landscapes Dispersal traits of different species should be taken more into consideration in the practical conservation of amphibian habitatsWe are grateful to Piet Spaak and four anonymous reviewers for providing useful comments and suggestions We thank David Kurz and Dunja Lukić for the language revision The research stay of A L Péntek at WasserCluster Lunz was supported by the shortterm study program scholarship of Campus Hungary

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