Less lineages – more trait variation: phylogenetically clustered plant communities are functionally more diverse

Prinzing, Andreas; Reiffers, R.; Braakhekke, W.G.; Hennekens, S.M.; Tackenberg, Oliver; Ozinga, Wim A.; Schaminée, J.H.J.; Groenendael, J.M. van

doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2008.01189.x

Cited by 160 publications

(208 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…First, many functional traits and biotic interactions show phylogenetic signal: recently diversified species share more functional traits and biotic interactions than do anciently diversified species (Losos 2008, phylogenetic conservatism sensu Wiens et al 2010;Gomez et al 2010). A community in which species stemming from ancient diversifications coexist may hence be functionally highly diverse (Cadotte et al 2008, but see Prinzing et al 2008), which in turn has been shown to increase ecosystem productivity (Cadotte et al 2008). Also, phylogenetic signal of traits within plant and herbivore lineages impedes herbivores from switching among major ancient plant lineages (Wiens et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Until now, phylogenetic diversification, or more generally the evolutionary history represented within a community, has often been inferred from a simple metric of phylogenetic diversity, such as the mean or sum of phylogenetic branch lengths connecting pairs of species (e.g., Proches et al 2006;Prinzing et al 2008;Cadotte et al 2009; and many other studies). However, these simple metrics often fail in differentiating even very different patterns of accumulation of ancient or recent lineages represented by species in a community ( fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Evolutionary Legacy of Diversification Predicts Ecosystem Function

Yguel

Jactel

Pearse

et al. 2016

The American Naturalist

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Online enhancements: supporting files. Dryad data: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jd150.abstract: Theory suggests that the structure of evolutionary history represented in a species community may affect its functioning, but phylogenetic diversity metrics do not allow for the identification of major differences in this structure. Here we propose a new metric, ELDERness (for Evolutionary Legacy of DivERsity) to estimate evolutionary branching patterns within communities by fitting a polynomial function to lineage-through-time (LTT) plots. We illustrate how real and simulated community branching patterns can be more correctly described by ELDERness and can successfully predict ecosystem functioning. In particular, the evolutionary history of branching patterns can be encapsulated by the parameters of third-order polynomial functions and further measured through only two parameters, the "ELDERness surfaces." These parameters captured variation in productivity of a grassland community better than existing phylogenetic diversity or diversification metrics and independent of species richness or presence of nitrogen fixers. Specifically, communities with small ELDERness surfaces (constant accumulation of lineages through time in LTT plots) were more productive, consistent with increased productivity resulting from complementary lineages combined with niche filling within lineages. Overall, while existing phylogenetic diversity metrics remain useful in many contexts, we suggest that our ELDERness approach better enables testing hypotheses that relate complex patterns of macroevolutionary history represented in local communities to ecosystem functioning.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evolutionary Legacy of Diversification Predicts Ecosystem Function

Yguel

Jactel

Pearse

et al. 2016

The American Naturalist

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“…Ungulate, primate and fruit bat (megachiropteran) assemblages on islands tend to be phylogenetically overdispersed although patterns were influenced by the island type (land bridge versus oceanic), richness, maximum elevation and habitat diversity [76]. Dutch plant communities show trait convergence for persistence-related traits and a mixture of trait convergence and overdispersion for dispersal traits [40]. Larval mosquito assemblages in bromeliads partition space and habitat size [77].…”

Section: Recent Advances (A) Changes In Vocabularymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That is, species composition may be largely dispersal limited [37,38], but functional composition is much less so [39]. In addition, traits associated with dispersal ability can be incorporated to assess the degree of dispersal limitation [37,40].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advances, challenges and a developing synthesis of ecological community assembly theory

Weiher

Freund

Bunton

et al. 2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

520

552

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Ecological approaches to community assembly have emphasized the interplay between neutral processes, niche-based environmental filtering and niche-based species sorting in an interactive milieu. Recently, progress has been made in terms of aligning our vocabulary with conceptual advances, assessing how trait-based community functional parameters differ from neutral expectation and assessing how traits vary along environmental gradients. Experiments have confirmed the influence of these processes on assembly and have addressed the role of dispersal in shaping local assemblages. Community phylogenetics has forged common ground between ecologists and biogeographers, but it is not a proxy for trait-based approaches. Community assembly theory is in need of a comparative synthesis that addresses how the relative importance of niche and neutral processes varies among taxa, along environmental gradients, and across scales. Towards that goal, we suggest a set of traits that probably confer increasing community neutrality and regionality and review the influences of stress, disturbance and scale on the importance of niche assembly. We advocate increasing the complexity of experiments in order to assess the relative importance of multiple processes. As an example, we provide evidence that dispersal, niche processes and trait interdependencies have about equal influence on trait-based assembly in an experimental grassland.

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“…When indices of different communities are compared with each other or when differences between communities are explained with predictor variables, the effect of species richness should therefore be removed from the observed pattern, in order to describe patterns of pure functional diversity. Since the observed relationships are not simply linear and differ between the FR indices, and because of unequal variances, we recommend using null models to remove the effect of species richness rather than using the residuals from a constructed model (method: Gotelli and Graves 1996, example for application: Mason et al 2007, Prinzing et al 2008). …”

Section: Recommendations For Usersmentioning

confidence: 99%

A user's guide to functional diversity indices

Schleuter¹,

Daufresne

Massol

et al. 2010

Ecological Monographs

573

531

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Abstract. Functional diversity is the diversity of species traits in ecosystems. This concept is increasingly used in ecological research. Yet its formal definition and measurements are currently under discussion. As the overall behavior and consistency of functional diversity indices have never been described so far, the novice user risks choosing an inaccurate index or a set of redundant indices to represent functional diversity.In our study we closely examine functional diversity indices to clarify their accuracy, consistency, and independency. Following current theory, we categorize them into functional richness, evenness, or divergence indices. We considered existing indices as well as new indices developed in this study. The new indices aimed at remedying the weaknesses of currently used indices (e.g., by taking into account intraspecific variability). Using virtual datasets, we first test whether indices respond to community changes as expected from their category, and second, whether the indices within each category are consistent and independent of indices from other categories. We also test the accuracy of methods proposed for the use of categorical traits.Most classical functional richness indices either failed to describe functional richness or were correlated with functional divergence indices. We therefore recommend using the new functional richness indices which consider intraspecific variability and thus empty space in the functional niche space. In contrast, most functional evenness and divergence indices performed well with respect to all proposed tests. For categorical variables, we do not recommend blending discrete and real-valued traits (except for indices based on distance measures) since functional evenness and divergence have no transposable meaning for discrete traits. Nonetheless, species diversity indices can be applied to categorical traits (using trait levels instead of species) in order to describe functional richness and equitability.

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Less lineages – more trait variation: phylogenetically clustered plant communities are functionally more diverse

Cited by 160 publications

References 43 publications

The Evolutionary Legacy of Diversification Predicts Ecosystem Function

The Evolutionary Legacy of Diversification Predicts Ecosystem Function

Advances, challenges and a developing synthesis of ecological community assembly theory

A user's guide to functional diversity indices

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