Hydrologic connection between ponds positively affects macrophyte α and γ diversity but negatively affects β diversity

Connections between habitat patches can positively influence the number of species in respective patches, providing a basis for preferentially conserving interconnected patches. However, from a regional perspective, it is not known whether conserving multiple sets of interconnected habitat patches would include more species (i.e., show higher gamma diversity) than conserving multiple, unconnected, solitary patches. We studied aquatic macrophytes in 15 sets of unidirectionally interconnected ponds and 19 unconnected ponds and also tested whether alpha and beta diversity, expressed as the number of species and dissimilarity in species composition, respectively, differed between connected and unconnected ponds. We found that c diversity was higher in connected ponds than in unconnected ponds, even after controlling for surface area. This resulted from a higher a diversity in connected ponds, despite lower b diversity. These results suggest that connections between habitat patches positively influence diversity at both local and regional scales. When the total surface area available for conservation is limited, interconnected habitat patches should be preferentially conserved.