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Dissecting spatiotemporal patterns of functional diversity through the lens of Darwin's naturalization conundrum.

ABSTRACT: Darwin's naturalization conundrum describes the paradigm that community assembly is regulated by two opposing processes, environmental filtering and competitive interactions, which predict both similarity and distinctiveness of species to be important for establishment. Our goal is to use long-term, large-scale, and high-resolution temporal data to examine diversity patterns over time and assess whether environmental filtering or competition plays a larger role in regulating community assembly processes. We evaluated Darwin's naturalization conundrum and how functional diversity has changed in the Laurentian Great Lakes fish community from 1870 to 2010, which has experienced frequent introductions of non-native species and extirpations of native species. We analyzed how functional diversity has changed over time by decade from 1870 to 2010 at three spatial scales (regional, lake, and habitat) to account for potential noninteractions between species at the regional and lake level. We also determined which process, environmental filtering or competitive interactions, is more important in regulating community assembly and maintenance by comparing observed patterns to what we would expect in the absence of an ecological mechanism. With the exception of one community, all analyses show that functional diversity and species richness has increased over time and that environmental filtering regulates community assembly at the regional level. When examining functional diversity at the lake and habitat level, the regulating processes become more context dependent. This study is the first to examine diversity patterns and Darwin's conundrum by integrating long-term, large-scale, and high-resolution temporal data at multiple spatial scales. Our results confirm that Darwin's conundrum is highly context dependent.

SUBMITTER: Campbell SE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5468161 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Dissecting spatiotemporal patterns of functional diversity through the lens of Darwin's naturalization conundrum.

Campbell Sara E SE Mandrak Nicholas E NE

Ecology and evolution 20170421 11

Darwin's naturalization conundrum describes the paradigm that community assembly is regulated by two opposing processes, environmental filtering and competitive interactions, which predict both similarity and distinctiveness of species to be important for establishment. Our goal is to use long-term, large-scale, and high-resolution temporal data to examine diversity patterns over time and assess whether environmental filtering or competition plays a larger role in regulating community assembly p ...[more]

PMID: 28616183

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Project description:Background:Despite numerous tests of Darwin's naturalization hypothesis (DNH) evidence for its support or rejection is still contradictory. We tested a DNH derived prediction stating that nonnative species (NNS) without native congeneric relatives (NCR) will spread to a greater number of localities than species with close relatives in the new range. This test controlled the effect of residence time (Rt) on the spread of NNS and used naturalized species beyond their lag phase to avoid the effect of stochastic events in the establishment and the lag phases that could obscure the NCR effects on NNS. Methods:We compared the number of localities (spread) occupied by NNS with and without NCR using 13,977 herbarium records for 305 NNS of weeds. We regressed the number of localities occupied by NNS versus Rt to determine the effect of time on the spread of NNS. Then, we selected the species with Rt greater than the expected span of the lag phase, whose residuals were above and below the regression confidence limits; these NNS were classified as widespread (those occupying more localities than expected by Rt) and limited-spread (those occupying fewer localities than expected). These sets were again subclassified into two groups: NNS with and without NCR at the genus level. The number of NNS with and without NCR was compared using ?2 tests and Spearman correlations between the residuals and the number of relatives. Then, we grouped the NNS using 34 biological attributes and five usages to identify the groups' possible associations with spread and to test DNH. To identify species groups, we performed a nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) analysis and evaluated the influences of the number of relatives, localities, herbarium specimens, Rt, and residuals of regression. The Spearman correlation and the Mann-Whitney U test were used to determine if the DNH prediction was met. Additionally, we used the clustering objects on subsets of attributes (COSA) method to identify possible syndromes (sets of biological attributes and usages) associated to four groups of NNS useful to test DNH (those with and without NCR and those in more and fewer localities than expected by Rt). Results:Residence time explained 33% of the variation in localities occupied by nonnative trees and shrubs and 46% of the variation for herbs and subshrubs. The residuals of the regression for NNS were not associated with the number or presence of NCR. In each of the NMDS groups, the number of localities occupied by NNS with and without NCR did not significantly differ. The COSA analysis detected that only NNS with NCR in more and fewer localities than expected share biological attributes and usages, but they differ in their relative importance. Discussion:Our results suggest that DNH does not explain the spread of naturalized species in a highly heterogeneous country. Thus, the presence of NCR is not a useful characteristic in risk analyses for naturalized NNS.

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Dissecting spatiotemporal patterns of functional diversity through the lens of Darwin's naturalization conundrum.

Publications

Dissecting spatiotemporal patterns of functional diversity through the lens of Darwin's naturalization conundrum.

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