Download or read book Mechanisms of Ecological Succession in the Aquatic Larval Diptera Communities of Artificial Containers written by Ebony G. Murrell and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecological succession is a well-documented phenomenon in multiple plant, animal, and protozoan communities. However, many systems in which succession has been documented are not ideal model systems; therefore, what drives succession in communities is still poorly understood. Larval aquatic Diptera inhabiting artificial containers could provide an ideal model system in which to test mechanisms of succession, provided that succession occurs within these container communities. In Chapter II, I tested whether species turnover of aquatic Diptera in containers depends on the chronological age of the community, the season in which the container existed, or both season and container age. I determined that species turnover was significantly affected by both season and container age. Season appeared to affect the abundance of certain species; however, the significant effect of container age is strong evidence that the species turnover in these communities can be defined as true ecological succession. In Chapter III, I developed a new index of competitive ability and use it to assess competitive abilities among multiple larval mosquito species in container systems. I determined that this new index is as predictive of competitive ranking among 3 mosquito species as more traditional response-surface design experiments. In Chapter IV, I developed and tested my own hypothesis that succession in these communities is driven by a 3-way niche tradeoff among colonization ability, competitive ability, and predator resistance of the resident species. I found a significant tradeoff between colonization and competitive abilities, but not between colonization abilities and predator vulnerabilities or between competitive ability and predator vulnerabilities of species. In Chapter V, I used a field study to test whether early-colonizing species are more or less vulnerable to predators than are later-colonizing species by manipulating the presence of later colonizers, then tracking T. rutilus colonization. The abundance and arrival time of T. rutilus was not affect by removal of Aedes, which supports the hypothesis that early colonizing species are at least as vulnerable, if not more so, to predation than later-colonizing species.