MACROINVERTEBRATE METACOMMUNITY DYNAMICS IN ALPINE PONDS UNDER CLIMATE CHANGE

There is still little understanding of how metacommunities (i.e. a regional set of local communities connected by dispersal) are affected by climate change. Typically, communities are assembled by a combination of abiotic factors, biotic interactions, priority effects and dispersal processes. Alpine lakes and ponds are considered sentinels of environmental change and hence represent an ideal system model to study the effects of global warming on metacommunities. However, the role of niche‐ and dispersal‐based dynamics on aquatic organisms of alpine lentic water bodies is still largely unknown. The Sierra Nevada mountain range in Spain is the southernmost high mountain system in Europe and represents one of the areas with the highest values of biodiversity and endemism of the Iberian Peninsula. It hosts a system of alpine ponds of glacial origin that harbour relatively simple biological communities because of their environmental homogeneity, but contain highly specific, cold-adapted species assemblages.