Hydroperiod, or the amount of time a lentic waterbody contains water, shapes communities of aquatic organisms. Precise measurement of hydroperiod features such as inundation timing and duration can help predict community dynamics and ecosystem stability. In areas defined by high spatial and temporal variability, fine-scale temporal variation in inundation timing and duration may drive community structure, but that variation may not be captured using common approaches including remote sensing technology. Here, we provide methods to accurately capture inundation timing by fitting hidden Markov models to measurements of daily temperature SD collected from temperature loggers. We describe a rugged housing design to protect loggers from physical damage and apply our methods to a group of intermittent ponds in southeastern Arizona, showing that initial pond inundation timing is highly variable across a small geographic scale (∼50 km²). We also compare a 1-logger (pond only) and 2-logger (pond + control) design and show that, although a single logger may be sufficient to capture inundation timing in most cases, a 2-logger design can increase confidence in results. These methods are cost-effective and show promise in capturing variation in intraregional inundation timing for a range of temporary lentic habitats that may have profound effects on aquatic communities, with implications for how these communities may respond to hydroperiod alteration from a changing climate.

中文翻译：

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温度记录仪捕获间歇性池塘淹没时间的区域内变化

Hydroperiod 或静水水体含有水的时间量，塑造了水生生物群落。精确测量洪水期特征（例如淹没时间和持续时间）有助于预测群落动态和生态系统稳定性。在由高时空变异性定义的地区，淹没时间和持续时间的精细时间变化可能会推动社区结构，但使用包括遥感技术在内的常见方法可能无法捕捉到这种变化。在这里，我们提供了通过将隐马尔可夫模型拟合到从温度记录器收集的每日温度 SD 的测量值来准确捕获淹没时间的方法。我们描述了一种坚固的外壳设计，以保护记录器免受物理损坏，并将我们的方法应用于亚利桑那州东南部的一组间歇性池塘，²）。我们还比较了 1 个记录器（仅池塘）和 2 个记录器（池塘 + 控制）设计并表明，尽管在大多数情况下单个记录器可能足以捕获淹没时间，但 2 个记录器设计可以增加对结果的信心. 这些方法具有成本效益，并且在捕捉可能对水生群落产生深远影响的一系列临时静息栖息地的区域内淹没时间变化方面显示出希望，这对这些群落如何应对气候变化导致的水周期变化产生影响。