Diversity of dormant and active zooplankton stages: Spatial patterns across scales in temperate riverine floodplains

Abstract

In dynamic systems, many species use dormancy as a strategy to survive harsh periods and disperse through time, a fundamental aspect scarcely explored in metacommunities studies. We compared spatial patterns of resting egg bank and active zooplankton diversity across scales (rotifers and cladocerans), explored relationships between diversity and environmental and spatial factors and compared their species composition in riverine floodplains of the Danube River. The egg bank was similarly or even more heterogeneous than the active communities, and signals of community homogenization detected for active communities were not observed for the egg bank. The strong relationships detected between rotifers egg bank diversity and local hydrological parameters suggest that floods would not weaken diversity-environment relationships, as observed for the active communities. These results imply that spatial patterns of resting and active stages are affected by different processes and that the egg bank would not contribute to the homogenizing tendencies observed for the active communities. Our study contributes to a more thorough understanding of zooplankton metacommunities in riverine floodplains and shows the need to further investigate the spatial and temporal patterns of the egg banks within the framework of metacommunities.