Does trait-based joint species distribution modelling reveal the signature of competition in stream macroinvertebrate communities?

1. The occupancy and abundance of species are jointly driven by local factors, such as environmental characteristics and biotic interactions, and regional-scale factors, such as dispersal and climate. Recently, it has been shown that biotic interactions shape species occupancies and abundances beyond local extents. However, for small ectothermic animals, particularly for those occurring in freshwater environments, the importance of biotic interactions remains understudied. Species-to-species associations from joint species distribution models (i.e. species associations while controlling for environmental characteristics) are increasingly used to draw hypotheses of which species possibly show biotic interactions.

2. We studied whether species-to-species associations from joint species distribution models show signs of competition using a hypothesis testing framework in stream macroinvertebrate communities at regional extent.

3. We sampled aquatic macroinvertebrates from 105 stream ...