Seasonal interactions and rewiring in freshwater stream fish networks
Chris Brimacombe1,*, Korryn Bodner1,2,3 and Marie-Josée Fortin1,4
1Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3B2
2Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M1C 1A4
3K.Bodner@mail.utoronto.ca
4MarieJosee.Fortin@utoronto.ca
*Corresponding author: Chris.Brimacombe@mail.utoronto.ca
Type of article: Letters
Keywords: Beta-diversity, EMtree approach, interaction networks, interaction rewiring, joint species distribution model, NEON data, network theory, Poisson log-normal models, seasonality
Author’s contributions: CB and KB proposed the concept for the paper. CB obtained the data and CB and KB developed the methods and results. CB and KB wrote the initial manuscript. MJF contributed to the concept of the paper. All authors contributed to further editing of the manuscript. CB was supported by an NSERC CGSM scholarship. MJF was supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant and an NSERC CRC.
Conflict of interest: None.
Data Accessibility: Should the manuscript be accepted, data supporting the results will be archived in Dryad.
Short running title: Seasonal interactions and rewiring.
Number of words in abstract: 153, Number of words in manuscript: 5001, Number of references:58, Number of figures, and tables: 6
Abstract: Despite evidence that seasonal variation may lead to the persistence of competing species, studies on the effect of seasonality on community network structures are limited. Furthermore, identifying whether seasonal network changes are the result of species turnover or rewiring (rearrangement of interactions among species), also remains understudied. Here, we investigate seasonal network changes in a stream fish community across Fall and Spring data. We find strong evidence that seasonality influences species interactions, particularly through rewiring. Moreover, we find that a species’ number of rewiring interactions was best explained by its status as a piscivore/non-piscivore and its maximum length. Overall, we argue that rewiring may be a dominant process in communities experiencing seasonal environments and that traits linked to trophic-level may identify species contributing most to rewiring. As networks dominated by rewiring may be more robust, understanding the causes of changes in species interactions can help determine when communities may persist given a disturbance.