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Marine and Freshwater Research Marine and Freshwater Research Society
Advances in the aquatic sciences
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Diversity partitioning of a phytoplankton community in semiarid salterns

Raiane S. Costa A D , Joseline Molozzi A , Luiz U. Hepp C , Renato M. Rocha B and José E. L. Barbosa A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Department of Biology, Universidade Estadual da Paraíba (UEPB), Rua Baraúnas, 351, CEP 58429-500, Campina Grande, PB, Brazil.

B Department of Geography, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Rua José Evaristo, CEP 59300-000, Caicó, RN, Brazil.

C Department of Biological Sciences, Universidade Regional do Alto Uruguai e das Missões – Erechim, Avenida Sete de Setembro, 1621, CEP 99709-910, Erechim, RS, Brazil.

D Corresponding author. Email: raianegeo@hotmal.com

Marine and Freshwater Research 67(2) 238-245 https://doi.org/10.1071/MF14210
Submitted: 18 July 2014  Accepted: 9 February 2015   Published: 17 June 2015

Abstract

Salterns consist of a series of interconnected evaporators that form sectors in the salterns. Their operation generates an increasing saline gradient, which influences species diversity. The present study was conducted in three salterns, with the goal of evaluating the diversity partitioning of phytoplankton along the saline gradient. We identified 65 taxa; the species richness was similar among the salterns, with higher values occurring in initial sectors and a downward trend with increasing salinity. In the partitioning analysis, the α diversity contributed 33.8% of the total diversity. The diversity variance showed a strong reduction from the α to β1 (33.8–6.3%). At higher scales, the highest species richness was found between salt marshes; however, there was lower diversity and a decrease in similarity from the lower to the higher scale. Therefore, we demonstrated that the greater variance in phytoplankton richness was at higher scales.

Additional keywords: additive partitioning, alpha diversity, beta diversity, hierarchical scales, salinity.


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