Dataset Information

Distance decay 2.0 - A global synthesis of taxonomic and functional turnover in ecological communities.

ABSTRACT:

Aim

Understanding the variation in community composition and species abundances (i.e., β-diversity) is at the heart of community ecology. A common approach to examine β-diversity is to evaluate directional variation in community composition by measuring the decay in the similarity among pairs of communities along spatial or environmental distance. We provide the first global synthesis of taxonomic and functional distance decay along spatial and environmental distance by analysing 148 datasets comprising different types of organisms and environments.

Location

Global.

Time period

1990 to present.

Major taxa studied

From diatoms to mammals.

Method

We measured the strength of the decay using ranked Mantel tests (Mantel r) and the rate of distance decay as the slope of an exponential fit using generalized linear models. We used null models to test whether functional similarity decays faster or slower than expected given the taxonomic decay along the spatial and environmental distance. We also unveiled the factors driving the rate of decay across the datasets, including latitude, spatial extent, realm and organismal features.

Results

Taxonomic distance decay was stronger than functional distance decay along both spatial and environmental distance. Functional distance decay was random given the taxonomic distance decay. The rate of taxonomic and functional spatial distance decay was fastest in the datasets from mid-latitudes. Overall, datasets covering larger spatial extents showed a lower rate of decay along spatial distance but a higher rate of decay along environmental distance. Marine ecosystems had the slowest rate of decay along environmental distances.

Main conclusions

In general, taxonomic distance decay is a useful tool for biogeographical research because it reflects dispersal-related factors in addition to species responses to climatic and environmental variables. Moreover, functional distance decay might be a cost-effective option for investigating community changes in heterogeneous environments.

SUBMITTER: Graco-Roza C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9322010 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Distance decay 2.0 - A global synthesis of taxonomic and functional turnover in ecological communities.

Graco-Roza Caio C Aarnio Sonja S Abrego Nerea N Acosta Alicia T R ATR Alahuhta Janne J Altman Jan J Angiolini Claudia C Aroviita Jukka J Attorre Fabio F Baastrup-Spohr Lars L Barrera-Alba José J JJ Belmaker Jonathan J Biurrun Idoia I Bonari Gianmaria G Bruelheide Helge H Burrascano Sabina S Carboni Marta M Cardoso Pedro P Carvalho José C JC Castaldelli Giuseppe G Christensen Morten M Correa Gilsineia G Dembicz Iwona I Dengler Jürgen J Dolezal Jiri J Domingos Patricia P Erös Tibor T Ferreira Carlos E L CEL Filibeck Goffredo G Floeter Sergio R SR Friedlander Alan M AM Gammal Johanna J Gavioli Anna A Gossner Martin M MM Granot Itai I Guarino Riccardo R Gustafsson Camilla C Hayden Brian B He Siwen S Heilmann-Clausen Jacob J Heino Jani J Hunter John T JT Huszar Vera L M VLM Janišová Monika M Jyrkänkallio-Mikkola Jenny J Kahilainen Kimmo K KK Kemppinen Julia J Kozub Łukasz Ł Kruk Carla C Kulbiki Michel M Kuzemko Anna A Christiaan le Roux Peter P Lehikoinen Aleksi A Teixeira de Lima Domênica D Lopez-Urrutia Angel A Lukács Balázs A BA Luoto Miska M Mammola Stefano S Marinho Marcelo M MM Menezes Luciana S LS Milardi Marco M Miranda Marcela M Moser Gleyci A O GAO Mueller Joerg J Niittynen Pekka P Norkko Alf A Nowak Arkadiusz A Ometto Jean P JP Ovaskainen Otso O Overbeck Gerhard E GE Pacheco Felipe S FS Pajunen Virpi V Palpurina Salza S Picazo Félix F Prieto Juan A C JAC Rodil Iván F IF Sabatini Francesco M FM Salingré Shira S De Sanctis Michele M Segura Angel M AM da Silva Lucia H S LHS Stevanovic Zora D ZD Swacha Grzegorz G Teittinen Anette A Tolonen Kimmo T KT Tsiripidis Ioannis I Virta Leena L Wang Beixin B Wang Jianjun J Weisser Wolfgang W Xu Yuan Y Soininen Janne J

Global ecology and biogeography : a journal of macroecology 20220512 7

<h4>Aim</h4>Understanding the variation in community composition and species abundances (i.e., β-diversity) is at the heart of community ecology. A common approach to examine β-diversity is to evaluate directional variation in community composition by measuring the decay in the similarity among pairs of communities along spatial or environmental distance. We provide the first global synthesis of taxonomic and functional distance decay along spatial and environmental distance by analysing 148 dat ...[more]

PMID: 35915625

Similar Datasets

Project description:Understanding the influences of dispersal limitation and environmental filtering on the structure of ecological communities is a major challenge in ecology. Insight may be gained by combining phylogenetic, functional and taxonomic data to characterize spatial turnover in community structure (?-diversity). We develop a framework that allows rigorous inference of the strengths of dispersal limitation and environmental filtering by combining these three types of ?-diversity. Our framework provides model-generated expectations for patterns of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional ?-diversity across biologically relevant combinations of dispersal limitation and environmental filtering. After developing the framework we compared the model-generated expectations to the commonly used "intuitive" expectation that the variance explained by the environment or by space will, respectively, increase monotonically with the strength of environmental filtering or dispersal limitation. The model-generated expectations strongly departed from these intuitive expectations: the variance explained by the environment or by space was often a unimodal function of the strength of environmental filtering or dispersal limitation, respectively. Therefore, although it is commonly done in the literature, one cannot assume that the strength of an underlying process is a monotonic function of explained variance. To infer the strength of underlying processes, one must instead compare explained variances to model-generated expectations. Our framework provides these expectations. We show that by combining the three types of ?-diversity with model-generated expectations our framework is able to provide rigorous inferences of the relative and absolute strengths of dispersal limitation and environmental filtering. Phylogenetic, functional and taxonomic ?-diversity can therefore be used simultaneously to infer processes by comparing their empirical patterns to the expectations generated by frameworks similar to the one developed here.

Dataset Information

Distance decay 2.0 - A global synthesis of taxonomic and functional turnover in ecological communities.

Aim

Location

Time period

Major taxa studied

Method

Results

Main conclusions

Publications

Distance decay 2.0 - A global synthesis of taxonomic and functional turnover in ecological communities.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets