Cross-Taxon Congruence of Taxonomic and Functional Beta-Diversity Facets Across Spatial and Temporal Scales

Abstract

An intensively debated issue in ecology is whether the variations in the biodiversity patterns of different biological groups are congruent in space and time. In addition, ecologists have recognized the necessity of accounting for both taxonomic and functional facets when analysing spatial and temporal congruence patterns. This study aimed to determine how the cross-taxon congruence of taxonomic and functional beta diversity varies across space and time, using data from four floodplains at a continental scale. Our general hypothesis was that the congruence between aquatic biological groups, either taxonomic or functional, would decrease with the “between-group” functional distance. Also, we examined how congruence patterns varied across spatial and temporal scales by focusing on how the cross-taxon relationships differ among Brazilian floodplains and between dry/wet periods. Our study comprised information on eight biological groups from the four largest Brazilian river-floodplain systems, and cross-taxon congruence was assessed using Procrustes analysis. Our results show how detailed analyses can reveal different patterns of cross-taxon congruence, and partially support the hypothesis that the strength of cross-taxon congruence is negatively related to between-group functional distance.

Trait-Based Research on Rotifera: The Holy Grail or Just Messy?

“…For example, Colina et al [82] found group-specific feeding preferences of zooplankton linked to phytoplankton traits. Lansac-Tôha et al [83] found low levels of cross-taxon (from algae to zooplankton and fish) congruence of taxonomic and functional beta diversity. Even though not directly related to studies across trophic levels, small bacterivorous and detritophagous rotifers increase with trophic state [84] indicating a link between algae and rotifers.…”

“…The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https:// www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/w15081459/s1, Table S1: List of the 66 inspected studies with their publication year, studied habitat, country of provenance, journal name, impact factor, quartile rank, provision of traits, and application of the guild ratio [20][21][22]24,34,37,38,44,[47][48][49][50][51][52][54][55][56][57]80,83,; Table S2: Trait assignment for the 138 genera of phylum Rotifera [31,32,59,60,64,77,; Table S3: Rotifer genera with their traits and their cluster number as assigned by hierarchical, divisive clustering.…”

Rainfall Influences the Patterns of Diversity and Species Distribution in Sandy Beaches of the Amazon Coast

“…We tested the hypothesis that rainfall rate is a significant driver of Amazon coastal species and that the considerable input of freshwater during the rainy season reduces the number of species, abundance, and diversity (Shannon index) of Amazon's beaches, as demonstrated for other sandy beaches in South America, e.g., [23,24]. In addition, since floods and strong hydro dynamism tend to homogenize the environmental characteristics and reduce the spatial variability of biological assemblages (i.e., beta diversity) [25][26][27], we expected lower habitat heterogeneity and beta diversity of macrobenthic assemblages during the rainy season-an expectation further reinforced by the possible lower number of species and individuals.…”

Palms predict the distributions of birds in southwestern Amazônia and are potential surrogates for land-use planning by local communities

“…Biodiversity surrogates require a trade-off between the surrogates' ability to re ect the distribution of unsampled species and the cost of sampling species in the eld (Gardner et al 2008;Lansac-Tôha et al 2022). This approach has been applied to numerous taxonomic groups in terrestrial (Corcos et al 2021;Verdinelli et al 2022) and aquatic ecosystems (Pakulnicka et al 2015;Spigoloni et al 2022).…”