Spatio-Temporal Variations in Co-Occurrence Patterns of Fish Communities in Haizhou Bay, China: Null Model Analysis

Abstract

Co-occurrence pattern of fish species plays an important role in understanding the spatio-temporal structure and the stability of fish community. Species coexistence may vary with time and space. The co-occurrence patterns of fish species were examined using the C-score under fixed-fixed null model for fish communities in spring and autumn over different years in the Haizhou Bay, China. The results showed that fish assemblages in the whole bay had non-random patterns in spring and autumn over different years. However, the fish co-occurrence patterns were different for the northern and southern fish assemblages in spring and autumn. The northern fish assemblage showed structured pattern, whereas the southern assemblage were randomly assembled in spring. The co-occurrence patterns of fish communities were relatively stable over different years, and the number of significant species pairs in northern assemblage was more than that in the southern assemblage. Environmental heterogeneity played an important role in determining the distributions of fish species that formed significant species pairs, which might affect the co-occurrence patterns of northern and southern assemblages further in the Haizhou Bay.

Journal

Journal ID (publisher-id): JOUC

Title: Journal of Ocean University of China

Publisher: Science Press and Springer (China )

ISSN (Electronic): 1672-5182

Publication date (Electronic): 12 November 2019

Publication date (Print): 01 December 2019

Volume: 18

Issue: 6

Pages: 1497-1506

Affiliations

¹College of Fisheries, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266003, China

²Laboratory for Marine Fisheries Science and Food Production Processes, Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao), Qingdao 266037, China

³School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, Maine 04469, USA

Author notes

*Corresponding author: XU Binduo

Article

Publisher ID: s11802-019-4119-8

DOI: 10.1007/s11802-019-4119-8

Copyright statement: Copyright © Ocean University of China, Science Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2019.

License:

The copyright to this article, including any graphic elements therein (e.g. illustrations, charts, moving images), is hereby assigned for good and valuable consideration to the editorial office of Journal of Ocean University of China, Science Press and Springer effective if and when the article is accepted for publication and to the extent assignable if assignability is restricted for by applicable law or regulations (e.g. for U.S. government or crown employees).

Product

Self URI (journal-page): https://www.springer.com/journal/11802