Testing the veracity of space-for-time-substitution surveys in modeling long-term zooplankton community dynamics
Conference Year
January 2022
Abstract
Space-for-Time-substitution surveys (SFTS) are commonly used to describe zooplankton communities and model their response to environmental change. The approach typically uses single observations from many lakes to evaluate how zooplankton metrics (e.g. density, diversity indices) respond to spatial gradients in environmental forcing (e.g. temperature, nutrients). However, SFTS zooplankton surveys have not yet been tested for their reproducibility. We compiled global lake time series to test whether SFTS surveys capture long-term zooplankton patterns by resampling the datasets under different SFTS permutations. Preliminary results indicate that relationships from SFTS designs are not reproducible and SFTS designs should therefore be used with caution.
Primary Faculty Mentor Name
Jason Stockwell
Secondary Mentor Name
Ariana Chiapella
Faculty/Staff Collaborators
Jorge García-Girón, Jouko Sarvala, Orlane Anneville, Katharina Winter, Martin J. Kainz, Olga O. Rusanovskaya, Barbara Tartarotti, Kirsten S. Christoffersen, Jens C. Nejstgaard, Elvira de Eyto
Student Collaborators
Cecilia Vichi
Status
Undergraduate
Student College
Rubenstein School of Environmental and Natural Resources
Program/Major
Environmental Sciences
Second Program/Major
Anthropology
Primary Research Category
Biological Sciences
Secondary Research Category
Food & Environment Studies
Testing the veracity of space-for-time-substitution surveys in modeling long-term zooplankton community dynamics
Space-for-Time-substitution surveys (SFTS) are commonly used to describe zooplankton communities and model their response to environmental change. The approach typically uses single observations from many lakes to evaluate how zooplankton metrics (e.g. density, diversity indices) respond to spatial gradients in environmental forcing (e.g. temperature, nutrients). However, SFTS zooplankton surveys have not yet been tested for their reproducibility. We compiled global lake time series to test whether SFTS surveys capture long-term zooplankton patterns by resampling the datasets under different SFTS permutations. Preliminary results indicate that relationships from SFTS designs are not reproducible and SFTS designs should therefore be used with caution.