Patterns of abundance and co‐occurrence in aquatic plant communities

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Abstract
Aquatic plants are well suited as subjects for studies on the distribution and abundance of co‐occurring species, especially due to the simple structure of their communities, well defined toposequences and relatively easily measurable environmental factors. Here we show that underwater plants occurring in semi‐natural lakes form stable communities, where species interactions dominate over dispersal dynamics to form a modular community structure with a high degree of zonation (turnover) and low within‐module species richness. In turn, human‐induced disturbance largely destroyed the modular structure. Our results indicate that (1) species abundance distributions (SADs) of underwater plant communities are well described by the lognormal model; (2) environmental characters did not significantly influence the SADs of underwater plant communities; (3) log‐series SADs do not indicate specific types of community organization; (4) in our lake communities only few satellites (tourists) occur; (5) the co‐occurrence of species is highly dependent on the turnover across lakes and water depth zones; and (6) species zonation is a function of lake properties.

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