Unraveling the Interplay of Community Assembly Processes Acting on Multiple Niche Axes across Spatial Scales

Trisos, Christopher H.; Petchey, Owen L.; Tobias, Joe

doi:10.1086/678233

Cited by 79 publications

(132 citation statements)

References 66 publications

(119 reference statements)

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“…Based on the reported link between form and function in birds [28], these findings suggest that the insectivore community is increasingly dominated by species that capture prey in flight or from canopy foliage. The pattern also reflects the addition of mobile, opportunistic, non-forest species, in conjunction with the removal of dispersal-limited, forest-dependent species [58].…”

Section: (B) Variation In Trait Distributionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Using avian functional traits to assess the impact of land-cover change on ecosystem processes linked to resilience in tropical forests

et al. 2016

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Vertebrates perform key roles in ecosystem processes via trophic interactions with plants and insects, but the response of these interactions to environmental change is difficult to quantify in complex systems, such as tropical forests. Here, we use the functional trait structure of Amazonian forest bird assemblages to explore the impacts of land-cover change on two ecosystem processes: seed dispersal and insect predation. We show that trait structure in assemblages of frugivorous and insectivorous birds remained stable after primary forests were subjected to logging and fire events, but that further intensification of human land use substantially reduced the functional diversity and dispersion of traits, and resulted in communities that occupied a different region of trait space. These effects were only partially reversed in regenerating secondary forests. Our findings suggest that local extinctions caused by the loss and degradation of tropical forest are non-random with respect to functional traits, thus disrupting the network of trophic interactions regulating seed dispersal by forest birds and herbivory by insects, with important implications for the structure and resilience of human-modified tropical forests. Furthermore, our results illustrate how quantitative functional traits for specific guilds can provide a range of metrics for estimating the contribution of biodiversity to ecosystem processes, and the response of such processes to land-cover change

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Section: (B) Variation In Trait Distributionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Using avian functional traits to assess the impact of land-cover change on ecosystem processes linked to resilience in tropical forests

et al. 2016

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“…Thus, the role of behavioral interference is potentially overlooked, particularly in tropical systems, where stable environmental conditions might maximize the diversity, dietary specialization, and niche packing of sedentary species, and, hence, promote intense biotic interactions [75,76]. For example, aggressive interference in tropical bird species can lead to checkerboard distributions or mosaic parapatry at local scales [25,77], as well as maintaining true parapatry at larger scales [17,46], through territorial interactions, niche incumbency, and other ecological sorting mechanisms. Moreover, aggressive interference can even shape foraging niches, which has implications for understanding how communities will function under global change [78] (Box 3).…”

Section: Behavioral Interference In Competition Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causes and Consequences of Behavioral Interference between Species

Grether

Peiman

Tobias

et al. 2017

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

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Behavioral interference between species, such as territorial aggression, courtship, and mating, is widespread in animals. While aggressive and reproductive forms of interspecific interference have generally been studied separately, their many parallels and connections warrant a unified conceptual approach. Substantial evidence exists that aggressive and reproductive interference have pervasive effects on species coexistence, range limits, and evolutionary processes, including divergent and convergent forms of character displacement. Alien species invasions and climate change-induced range shifts result in novel interspecific interactions, heightening the importance of predicting the consequences of species interactions, and behavioral interference is a fundamental but neglected part of the equation. Here, we outline priorities for further theoretical and empirical research on the ecological and evolutionary consequences of behavioral interference. Interspecific Aggression and Reproductive InterferenceFew subjects in animal behavior have attracted more attention than aggression and sex, yet research tends to stop at species boundaries even when the behaviors themselves do not. Aggressive and sexual interactions between species are surprisingly common and share many parallels in their causes and ecological and evolutionary effects [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Both types of behavioral interference (Box 1) have been hypothesized to: (i) arise as a byproduct of intraspecific interactions (Box 2); (ii) cause local extinction as well as temporal and spatial habitat partitioning; (iii) prevent species from coexisting that otherwise would be expected to coexist; (iv) enable coexistence between species that otherwise would not be expected to coexist; (v) promote or prevent species range shifts and the spread of invasive species; (vi) cause sympatric species to diverge or converge through character displacement processes; (vii) cause populations within a species to diverge from each other due to character displacement in areas of sympatry; and (viii) contribute to reproductive isolation and speciation ( Figure 1).Despite their connections, aggressive interference and reproductive interference (see Glossary) have largely been studied by different researchers in relation to different theoretical frameworks [2,4,7] and in different study systems [3], even though many closely related species interfere with each other in both ways (see Table S1 in [8]). We do not believe that these two categories of interspecific interactions should be synonymized, because this would obscure important differences between them. Instead, we propose that their similarities and interrelationships merit a common conceptual framework, which we introduce here ( Figure 1). TrendsAggressive and reproductive forms of behavioral interference between species are widespread in animals and share many parallels in their underlying causes and their ecological and evolutionary effects.Behavioral interference can determine whether species coexist and, thus, affects speci...

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“…Using these distances matrices, we calculated (i) functional diversity (FD; Petchey and Gaston, 2002), (ii) mean nearest taxon distance in functional space (MNTD; Webb, 2000), and (iii) convex hull volume (CHV; Cornwell et al, 2006). We select these metrics due to their complementary nature and recommendations of Trisos et al (2014). FD describes the functional relationships shared by species, and theoretically can reveal the net effects of major assembly processes (Mayfield and Levine, 2010;Trisos et al, 2014).…”

Section: Functional Diversity Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We select these metrics due to their complementary nature and recommendations of Trisos et al (2014). FD describes the functional relationships shared by species, and theoretically can reveal the net effects of major assembly processes (Mayfield and Levine, 2010;Trisos et al, 2014). FD and MNTD are particularly good at detecting over-dispersion in trait distribution across an assemblage, a pattern that is compatible with strong effects of inter-specific competition.…”

Section: Functional Diversity Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Urban Areas and Their Characteristics on Avian Functional Diversity

Hagen

Ibáñez‐Álamo

et al. 2017

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Urban development is rapidly expanding across the globe and is a major driver of environmental change. Despite considerable improvements in our understanding of how species richness responds to urbanization, there is still insufficient knowledge of how other measures of assemblage composition and structure respond to urban development. Functional diversity metrics provide a useful approach for quantifying ecological function. We compare avian functional diversity in 25 urban areas, located across the globe, with paired non-urban assemblages using a database of 27 functional traits that capture variation in resource use (amount and type of resources and how they are acquired) across the 529 species occurring across these assemblages. Using three standard functional diversity metrics (FD, MNTD, and convex hull) we quantify observed functional diversity and, using standardized effect sizes, how this diverges from that expected under random community assembly null models. We use regression trees to investigate whether human population density, amount of vegetation and city size (spatial extent of urban land), bio-region and use of semi-natural or agricultural assemblages as a baseline modulate the effect of urbanization on functional diversity. Our analyses suggest that observed functional diversity of urban avian assemblages is not consistently different from that of non-urban assemblages. After accounting for species richness avian functional diversity is higher in cities than areas of semi-natural habitat. This creates a paradox as species responses to urban development are determined by their ecological traits, which should generate assemblages clustered within a narrow range of trait space. Greater habitat diversity within cities compared to semi-natural areas dominated by a single habitat may enhance functional diversity in cities and explain this paradox. Regression trees further suggest that smaller urban areas, lower human population densities and increased vegetation all enhance the functional diversity of urban areas. A city's attributes can thus influence the functional diversity of its biological assemblages, and their associated ecological functions. This has important implications for the debate regarding how we should grow the world's cities whilst maintaining their ecological function.

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Unraveling the Interplay of Community Assembly Processes Acting on Multiple Niche Axes across Spatial Scales

Cited by 79 publications

References 66 publications

Using avian functional traits to assess the impact of land-cover change on ecosystem processes linked to resilience in tropical forests

Using avian functional traits to assess the impact of land-cover change on ecosystem processes linked to resilience in tropical forests

Causes and Consequences of Behavioral Interference between Species

Impacts of Urban Areas and Their Characteristics on Avian Functional Diversity

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