Linking species interactions with phylogenetic and functional distance in European bird assemblages at broad spatial scales

Abstract

Aim Understanding the relative contribution of different species interactions in shaping community assembly has been a pivotal aim in community ecology. Biotic interactions are acknowledged to be important at local scales, although their signal is assumed to weaken over longer distances. We examine the relationship between positive, neutral and negative pairwise bird abundance distributions and the phylogenetic and functional distance between these pairs after first controlling for habitat associations. Location France and Finland. Time period 1984 to 2011 (Finland), 2001 to 2012 (France). Major Taxa studied Birds. Methods We used results from French and Finnish land bird monitoring programmes, from which we created three independent datasets (French forests, French farmlands and Finnish forests). Separately for the three datasets, we fitted linear mixed‐effects models for pairwise abundance values across years per point count station to infer the association between all common species pairs, while controlling for geographical distribution and habitat associations, and saved pairwise regression coefficients for further analyses. We used a null model approach to infer whether the observed associations (effect sizes) differ from random. Finally, using quantile regression, we analysed the relationships between functional dissimilarity/phylogenetic distance and effect sizes. Results Our results show both negative and positive species interactions, although negative interactions were twice as common as positive interactions. Closely related species were more likely to show strong associations, both negative and positive, than more distant species across broad spatial scales. For functional dissimilarity, the results varied across datasets. Main conclusions Our results emphasize the potential of functional and phylogenetic proximity in generating both negative and positive species associations, which can produce pervasive patterns from local to geographical scales. Future assembly studies should refrain from strict dichotomies, such as compensatory dynamics versus environmental forcing, and instead consider the possibility of positive interactions.

Competition‐driven niche segregation on a landscape scale: Evidence for escaping from syntopy towards allotopy in two coexisting sibling passerine species

“…existence of basal niche overlap) suggesting that interspecific competition plays a dominant role in shaping large‐scale abundance patterns, and our empirical findings provide a clear support. Therefore, although interspecific competition may be not a dominant driver of community‐wide patterns (but see Gotelli, Graves, & Rahbek, ), it is important for limitation of closely related species’ pairs (see also Mönkkönen, Devictor, Forsman, Lehikoinen, & Elo, ).…”

“…Do these studies imply that the interspecific competition is in- Gotelli, Graves, & Rahbek, 2010), it is important for limitation of closely related species' pairs (see also Mönkkönen, Devictor, Forsman, Lehikoinen, & Elo, 2017).…”

The relative importance of biotic and abiotic determinants of temporal occupancy for avian species in North America

“…Here, we found that species tend to have the highest temporal occupancy in environments that are closest to their range-wide environmental centroids, with decreasing temporal occupancy in environments that are most different from the centroid conditions. Overall, temperature had the strongest effect on temporal occupancy of the environmental vari- Ecologists increasingly recognize that biotic factors may also be important in shaping distributions over broad geographic scales (Araújo & Rozenfeld, 2014;Belmaker et al, 2015;Bruno et al, 2003;Mönkkönen et al, 2017). Even though abiotic variables generally explained more variance in temporal occupancy, the maximum amount of variance that could be explained by competitor abundance (48% for yellow-bellied sapsucker, Sphyrapicus varius) was greater than the maximum amount of variance that could be explained by the environment (43% for bushtit).…”

“…Understanding what factors limit species distributions is critical for determining why species persist in their range and what habitat conditions they require (Andrewartha & Birch, 1954;Brown, 1984;Case, Holt, McPeek, & Keitt, 2005;Franklin, 2010;Guisan & Thuiller, 2005). Traditionally, species' distributions have been modelled based on presence/absence (Elith et al, 2006;Ferrier, Drielsma, Manion, & Watson, 2002;Phillips, Anderson, & Schapire, 2006) or as a snapshot in time of spatial abundance patterns (Bahn & McGill, 2007;Mönkkönen, Devictor, Forsman, Lehikoinen, & Elo, 2017). An alternative measure of occurrence is temporal occupancy, often measured as the proportion of years a species was observed at a given sampling site over time (Coyle, Hurlbert, & White, 2013;Snell Taylor, Evans, White, & Hurlbert, 2018).…”

Biotic predictors complement models of bat and bird responses to climate and tree diversity in European forests

“…has rarely been explored [7][8][9]. Thus, incorporating multispecies interactions in biodiversity response models is still challenging, although it would improve our understanding of large-scale biodiversity patterns when compared with classical studies focusing on single taxa [7][8][9][10][11].…”