TY  - JOUR
A1  - Weithoff, Guntram
A1  - Gaedke, Ursula
T1  - Mean functional traits of lake phytoplankton reflect seasonal and inter-annual changes in nutrients, climate and herbivory
JF  - Journal of plankton research
N2  - Trait-based approaches have become increasingly successful in community ecology. They assume that the distribution of functional traits within communities responds in a predictable way to alterations in environmental forcing and that strong forcing may accelerate such trait changes. We used high frequency measurements of phytoplankton to test these assumptions. We analyzed the seasonal and long-term dynamics of the community trait mean within a multi-dimensional trait space under alternating multifactorial environmental conditions. The community trait mean exhibited a distinct recurrent annual pattern that reflected minor changes in climate, herbivory and nutrients. Independent of early spring conditions, the community trait mean was repeatedly driven into a narrow confined area in the trait space under pronounced herbivory during the clear water phase. The speed of movement was highest at the onset and the relaxation of such strong unidirectional forcing. Thus, our data support the conceptual framework of trait-based ecology that alterations in environmental conditions are systematically tracked by adjustments in the dominant functional trait values and that the speed of trait changes depends on the kind and intensity of the selection pressure. Our approach provides a sensitive tool to detect small functional differences in the community related to subtle differences in forcing.
KW  - phytoplankton
KW  - temporal dynamics
KW  - climate
KW  - trait distribution
KW  - Lake Constance
KW  - functional traits
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/plankt/fbw072
SN  - 0142-7873
SN  - 1464-3774
VL  - 39
SP  - 509
EP  - 517
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  -