Intercontinental trends in functional and phylogenetic structure of stream fish assemblages.

ABSTRACT: Understanding of community assembly has been improved by phylogenetic and trait-based approaches, yet there is little consensus regarding the relative importance of alternative mechanisms and few studies have been done at large geographic and phylogenetic scales. Here, we use phylogenetic and trait dispersion approaches to determine the relative contribution of limiting similarity and environmental filtering to community assembly of stream fishes at an intercontinental scale. We sampled stream fishes from five zoogeographic regions. Analysis of traits associated with habitat use, feeding, or both resulted in more occurrences of trait underdispersion than overdispersion regardless of spatial scale or species pool. Our results suggest that environmental filtering and, to a lesser extent, spe

SUBMITTER: Bower LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6953669 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature