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Local environmental variables are key drivers of ant taxonomic and functional beta-diversity in a Mediterranean dryland.

ABSTRACT: The decomposition of beta-diversity (?-diversity) into its replacement (?_repl) and richness (?_rich) components in combination with a taxonomic and functional approach, may help to identify processes driving community composition along environmental gradients. We aimed to understand which abiotic and spatial variables influence ant ?-diversity and identify which processes may drive ant ?-diversity patterns in Mediterranean drylands by measuring the percentage of variation in ant taxonomic and functional ?-diversity explained by local environmental, regional climatic and spatial variables. We found that taxonomic and functional replacement (?_repl) primarily drove patterns in overall ?-diversity (?_tot). Variation partitioning analysis showed that respectively 16.8%, 12.9% and 21.6% of taxonomic ?_tot, ?_repl and ?_rich variation were mainly explained by local environmental variables. Local environmental variables were also the main determinants of functional ?-diversity, explaining 20.4%, 17.9% and 23.2% of ?_tot, ?_repl and ?_rich variation, respectively. Findings suggest that niche-based processes drive changes in ant ?-diversity, as local environmental variables may act as environmental filters on species and trait composition. While we found that local environmental variables were important predictors of ant ?-diversity, further analysis should address the contribution of other mechanisms, e.g. competitive exclusion and resource partitioning, on ant ?-diversity.

SUBMITTER: Frasconi Wendt C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7840911 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Local environmental variables are key drivers of ant taxonomic and functional beta-diversity in a Mediterranean dryland.

Frasconi Wendt Clara C Ceia-Hasse Ana A Nunes Alice A Verble Robin R Santini Giacomo G Boieiro Mário M Branquinho Cristina C

Scientific reports 20210127 1

The decomposition of beta-diversity (β-diversity) into its replacement (β<sub>repl</sub>) and richness (β<sub>rich</sub>) components in combination with a taxonomic and functional approach, may help to identify processes driving community composition along environmental gradients. We aimed to understand which abiotic and spatial variables influence ant β-diversity and identify which processes may drive ant β-diversity patterns in Mediterranean drylands by measuring the percentage of variation in ...[more]

PMID: 33504935

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Project description:Recently, new alternative matrices of biodiversity such as phylogenetic and functional diversity as a complement to species diversity have provided new insights into the mechanisms of community assembly. In this study, we analyzed the phylogenetic signals of five functional traits and the relative contribution of environmental variables and distance matrices to the alpha and beta components of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity in woody plant assemblages along four local elevational transects on two different mountains. We observed low but significant phylogenetic signals of functional traits, which suggest that phylogenetic dispersion can provide a rough approximation of functional dispersion but not perfect correlations between phylogenetic and functional diversity. Taxonomic alpha diversity showed a monotonic decline with elevation, and climatic variables were the main drivers of this pattern along all studied transects. Furthermore, although the phylogenetic and functional alpha dispersions showed different elevational patterns including increase, decrease and no relationship, the underlying processes driving the patterns of both types of alpha dispersion could be explained by the gradients of climatic and habitat variables as well as biotic interactions such as competition. These results suggest that both alpha dispersion patterns may be significantly controlled by niche-based deterministic processes such as biotic interactions and environmental filtering in our study areas. Moreover, the beta diversity with geographical distances showed distance-decay relationships for all transects. Although the relative importance of the environmental and geographical distances for beta diversity varied across the three facets of diversity and the transects, we generally found that environmental distances were more important for the beta components of the three facets of diversity. However, we cannot discriminate the effects of both distances on the three facets of diversity. Therefore, our study suggests that niche-based deterministic processes, potentially combined with neutral processes such as dispersal limitation and demographic stochasticity, may influence patterns of woody plant assemblage turnover in our study areas.

Project description:IntroductionFunctional trait-based approaches are extensively applied to the study of mechanisms governing community assembly along environmental gradients. These approaches have been classically based on studying differences in mean values among species, but there is increasing recognition that alternative metrics of trait distributions should be considered to decipher the mechanisms determining community assembly and species coexistence. Under this framework, the main aim of this study is to unravel the effects of environmental conditions as drivers of plant community assembly in sub-Mediterranean ecotones.MethodsWe set 60 plots in six plant communities of a sub-Mediterranean forest in Central Spain, and measured key above- and belowground functional traits in 411 individuals belonging to 19 species, along with abiotic variables. We calculated community-weighted mean (CWM), skewness (CWS) and kurtosis (CWK) of three plant dimensions, and used maximum likelihood techniques to analyze how variation in these functional community traits was driven by abiotic factors. Additionally, we estimated the relative contribution of intraspecific trait variability and species turnover to variation in CWM.Results and discussionThe first three axes of variation of the principal component analyses were related to three main plant ecological dimensions: Leaf Economics Spectrum, Root Economics Spectrum and plant hydraulic architecture, respectively. Type of community was the most important factor determining differences in the functional structure among communities, as compared to the role of abiotic variables. We found strong differences among communities in their CWMs in line with their biogeographic origin (Eurosiberian vs Mediterranean), while differences in CWS and CWK indicate different trends in the functional structure among communities and the coexistence of different functional strategies, respectively. Moreover, changes in functional composition were primarily due to intraspecific variability.ConclusionWe observed a high number of strategies in the forest with the different communities spreading along the acquisitive-conservative axis of resource-use, partly matching their Eurosiberian-Mediterranean nature, respectively. Intraspecific trait variability, rather than species turnover, stood as the most relevant factor when analyzing functional changes and assembly patterns among communities. Altogether, our data support the notion that ecotones are ecosystems where relatively minor environmental shifts may result in changes in plant and functional composition.

Dataset Information

Local environmental variables are key drivers of ant taxonomic and functional beta-diversity in a Mediterranean dryland.

Publications

Local environmental variables are key drivers of ant taxonomic and functional beta-diversity in a Mediterranean dryland.

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