HR: 11:30h
AN: NB32B-05 [Abstracts]
TI: Looking for Evidence of Neutral Processes in Rocky Mountain Alpine Stream Communities: a Novel Approach Using Population Genetics
AU: * Finn, D S
EM: debfinn@lamar.colostate.edu
AF: Department of Biology and Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Department of Biology
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 United States
AU: Poff, N L
EM: poff@lamar.colostate.edu
AF: Department of Biology and Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Department of Biology
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 United States
AB:
We used alpine stream communities in the Rocky Mountain National Park area, Colorado, for a novel test of neutral community
theory borrowing concepts from the neutral theory of molecular evolution. High beta diversity driven by low dispersal among
sites (both prominent features of alpine streams) is a key tenet of neutral theory, under which ecological drift is analogous to genetic drift, and distance decay corresponds to genetic isolation by distance. Hence, our expectation was that, under
neutral theory, patterns of community structure ought to mimic patterns of neutral population genetic structure of a
representative local species. Treating species as "alleles," we analyzed variation in community structure among five local
communities using analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA); we used the same method to analyze population genetic structure of
a common alpine blackfly (Prosimulium neomacropyga) occupying the same sites. Both communities and populations
exhibited significant structure among sites (FST = 0.265 and 0.233, respectively); however, a Mantel test revealed no
correlation between pairwise distances at the community and the population levels. Although neutral processes may be
important in structuring alpine stream communities, rates of drift may vary significantly between levels of organization, and other factors such as environmental heterogeneity are also influential.
DE: 9810 New fields (not classifiable under other headings)
DE: 9901 NABS Student Award - Basic Research
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly