Beta diversity as the variance of community data: dissimilarity coefficients and partitioning

Legendre, Pierre; Cáceres, Miquel De

doi:10.1111/ele.12141

Cited by 1,095 publications

(1,338 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(127 reference statements)

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“…This indicates that even broad processes such as mineralization may be hampered by high rates of species loss. By combining abundance, diversity and community structure data, and using variancepartitioning techniques (Legendre and De Caceres, 2013), we identified the diversity level × community structure interaction as the main driver (contributing ca. 28% of the variance) of observed differences in N-cycle functioning.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effectiveness of ecological rescue for altered soil microbial communities and functions

et al. 2016

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Soil ecosystems worldwide are subjected to marked modifications caused by anthropogenic disturbances and global climate change, resulting in microbial diversity loss and alteration of ecosystem functions. Despite the paucity of studies, restoration ecology provides an appropriate framework for testing the potential of manipulating soil microbial communities for the recovery of ecosystem functioning. We used a reciprocal transplant design in experimentally altered microbial communities to investigate the effectiveness of introducing microbial communities in degraded soil ecosystems to restore N-cycle functioning. Microbial diversity loss resulted in alternative compositional states associated with impaired N-cycle functioning. Here, the addition of complex microbial communities to these altered communities revealed a pivotal role of deterministic community assembly processes. The diversity of some alternative compositional states was successfully increased but without significant restoration of soil N-cycle functioning. However, in the most degraded alternative state, the introduction of new microbial communities caused an overall decrease in phylogenetic diversity and richness. The successful soil colonization by newly introduced species for some compositional states indicates that priority effects could be overridden when attempting to manipulate microbial communities for soil restoration. Altogether, our result showed consistent patterns within restoration treatments with minor idiosyncratic effects. This suggests the predominance of deterministic processes and the predictability of restoration trajectories, which could be used to guide the effective management of microbial community assemblages for ecological restoration of soils

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effectiveness of ecological rescue for altered soil microbial communities and functions

et al. 2016

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“…Using multivariate measures to determine changes in the composition of communities is a way to quantify beta diversity (Legendre et al 2005, Anderson 2006, Bacaro et al 2012, Legendre and De Cáceres 2013. More traditionally, beta diversity has been calculated directly from alpha and gamma diversity (Whittaker 1960, Tuomisto 2010a).…”

Section: Detecting the Magnitude And Predictability Of Community Chanmentioning

confidence: 99%

A framework for quantifying the magnitude and variability of community responses to global change drivers

et al. 2015

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Wilcox. 2015. A framework for quantifying the magnitude and variability of community responses to global change drivers. Ecosphere 6(12):280. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/ES15-00317.1Abstract. A major challenge in global change ecology is to predict the trajectory and magnitude of community change in response to global change drivers (GCDs). Here, we present a new framework that not only increases the predictive power of individual studies, but also allows for synthesis across GCD studies and ecosystems. First, we suggest that by quantifying community dissimilarity of replicates both among and within treatments, we can infer both the magnitude and predictability of community change, respectively. Second, we demonstrate the utility of integrating rank abundance curves with measures of community dissimilarity to understand the species-level dynamics driving community changes and propose a series of testable hypotheses linking changes in rank abundance curves with shifts in community dissimilarity. Finally, we review six case studies that demonstrate how our new conceptual framework can be applied. Overall, we present a new framework for holistically predicting community responses to GCDs that has broad applicability in this era of unprecedented global change and novel environmental conditions.

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“…This function involves the calculation of distances between the principal coordinates of dissimilarity coefficients to group centroids. In this case the Bray Curtis dissimilarity index was used because it takes account of relative abundances and has the necessary properties for the analysis of betadiversity (Legendre and De Cácares 2013). The groups were the two survey years.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term hay meadow management maintains the target community despite local-scale species turnover

2018

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Hay meadows, which are managed using a low-intensity regime, are characterized by highly diverse vegetation but have declined significantly since the mid twentieth century. Remaining species-rich meadows are often protected by statutory designations and conservation management agreements. However, long-term studies of change in the composition of meadow vegetation, and investigations of the success of conservation over the long-term are rare. Fourteen sites, which had a long history of being managed for field dried hay, were resurveyed after 25 years and redundancy analysis was undertaken to investigate changes in community composition. Investigations of the effect of soil conditions, site size and spatial distribution of the meadow sites were carried out. Although overall community composition had changed significantly, the suite of species representative of the meadow community had been maintained, and species usually associated with more intensively managed grasslands had declined. However, there were losses of particular species of conservation importance such as Alchemilla glabra and Conopodium majus, and losses and gains of species varied from site to site. There was a significant increase in the homogeneity of the meadow vegetation between the two survey years. Comparisons of indicators of soil conditions suggested that there had been no significant change for the community as a whole but analyses of the species showing the most change indicated a decrease in soil fertility. Low-intensity management has been successful in maintaining the meadow community but consideration of changes in key species and losses at the site level is needed. More research is needed to establish whether fragmentation is starting to have an impact on diversity.

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Beta diversity as the variance of community data: dissimilarity coefficients and partitioning

Cited by 1,095 publications

References 57 publications

Effectiveness of ecological rescue for altered soil microbial communities and functions

Effectiveness of ecological rescue for altered soil microbial communities and functions

A framework for quantifying the magnitude and variability of community responses to global change drivers

Long-term hay meadow management maintains the target community despite local-scale species turnover

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