Regional landscape differences lead to contrasts in the strength of environmental sorting among crustacean zooplankton metacommunities

Processes underlying metacommunity structuring are important for understanding species tracking of environmental change at a landscape scale. Species' functional traits more closely reflect their ecological roles than taxonomy, therefore, adopting a functional approach allows us a better understanding of metacommunity structuring. Yet, uncertainties remain because prior studies have rarely considered how opposing species responses to environmental gradients may obscure signals of metacommunity structuring related with the environment. Joint species distribution models can help to overcome this challenge by evaluating responses to environmental gradients in a species‐by‐species approach while considering the role of both functional traits and phylogeny in shaping those responses. We applied joint species distribution models to three crustacean zooplankton metacommunities differing in landscape features from boreal Québec (Canada) lakes. We integrated abiotic and non‐zooplankton biotic environmental gradients, spatial structuring, functional traits (body size and feeding guild) and phylogeny. We found that abiotic conditions were the main driver of zooplankton metacommunity structure within each of the three study regions. In one region (Côte‐Nord), functional traits were most strongly linked to species responses to pH and conductivity, and not nutrient availability as expected. This region, a landscape showing less dispersal limitation, allowed species to be more efficiently sorted into environmentally appropriate patches than more dispersal limited regions. The integration of functional traits, as well as the species‐by‐species approach, provided an improved understanding of how environmental gradients and landscape features shape community composition. This is important considering the rapid pace of environmental change resulting from human activities, especially in mountainous and northern regions.