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Salinity as a driver of aquatic invertebrate colonisation behaviour and distribution in the wheatbelt of Western Australia
Citation
Carver, SS and Storey, A and Spafford, H and Lynas, J and Chandler, L and Weinstein, P, Salinity as a driver of aquatic invertebrate colonisation behaviour and distribution in the wheatbelt of Western Australia, Hydrobiologia: The International Journal on Limnology and Marine Sciences, 617 pp. 75-90. ISSN 0018-8158 (2009) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
DOI: doi:10.1007/s10750-008-9527-5
Abstract
To understand how environmental change
will modify community assembly and the distribution
of organisms it is valuable to understand mechanisms
that drive the occurrence of organisms across the
landscape. Salinisation of agricultural land in southwest
Western Australia, as a result of land clearing, is a
widespread environmental change, which threatens
numerous taxa, but provides an opportunity to elucidate
such mechanisms. Although salinisation affects
terrestrial fauna and flora, the greatest impacts are seen
in wetlands and waterways. Many aquatic insect taxa
colonise ephemeral water bodies directly as adults or
by oviposition. Few empirical studies, however,
evaluate the influence of abiotic factors, such as water
body salinity, on the colonisation behaviour of aquatic
fauna. We conducted a manipulative experiment using
mesocosms to test whether colonising insect fauna
select aquatic habitats based upon salinity. We found
that halosensitive fauna selected less saline mesocosms
for oviposition and colonisation, demonstrating
that behaviour can influence the distribution of aquatic
organisms. Additionally, we utilised field surveys of
insects from ephemeral water bodies across a broad
region of southwest Western Australia to determine if
mesocosm results reflected field observation. The
abundance of the same insect taxa and taxonomic
groups in the field were highly variable and, with the
exceptions of Culex australicus Dobrotworksy and
Drummond and Anopheles annulipes Giles (Diptera:
Culicidae), did not show similar patterns of distribution
to those observed in the mesocosm experiment.
Both mesocosm and field assemblages exhibited
similar and significant trajectories associated with
the salinity gradient, even though there were differences
in assemblage structure between the two. Our
findings give empirical support to the importance of
behaviour in the spatial distribution and assembly of
some aquatic insects.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
---|---|
Research Division: | Biological Sciences |
Research Group: | Ecology |
Research Field: | Behavioural ecology |
Objective Division: | Environmental Management |
Objective Group: | Terrestrial systems and management |
Objective Field: | Terrestrial biodiversity |
UTAS Author: | Carver, SS (Dr Scott Carver) |
ID Code: | 80283 |
Year Published: | 2009 |
Web of Science® Times Cited: | 25 |
Deposited By: | Zoology |
Deposited On: | 2012-10-26 |
Last Modified: | 2012-11-12 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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