Pulse type hydric disturbances are common in Mediterranean lagoons and wetlands and their aquatic communities should be adapted to them. We start from the assumption that these communities are very resilient to these pulse type disturbances and adapted to the diminution of resource availability that occurs after them. Resilience also would appear at metacommunity scale, since under natural conditions, communities that colonize these aquatic environments are distributed in networks of more or less connected water bodies. On the other hand, these communities would be more sensitive to gradual nutrient inputs, usually of anthropogenic origin, that provide nutrients over a long period of time and increases productivity and resource availability. Gradual changes would have a setback on the successional pattern and would cause that community structure do not follow the characteristic pattern, favoring species with more opportunistic strategies.

In this project we will compare the response of aquatic communities to pulse type disturbances and to gradual nutrient inputs with the aim to determine if there are regularities between community structure and productivity and resource availability. We will analyse these responses at a metacommunity scale, comparing systems with lesser or greater degree of connectivity. Conclusions obtained will be applied in a restoration process, such as the project Life Pletera, so that nutrient dynamics is not altered by human activities but determined by natural hydrological events.

If you ar interested send an email to xavier.quintana@udg.edu