Distribution of mammal functional diversity in the Neotropical realm: Influence of land-use and extinction risk

Abstract

Functional diversity represents a measure of diversity that incorporates the role of species in an ecosystem, and therefore its dynamics and resilience. Assessing its drivers and spatial variation represents an important step forward in our understanding of functional ecosystem dynamics and it is also necessary to achieve a comprehensive conservation planning. In this paper, we assessed mammal functional diversity for the 218 ecoregions within the Neotropical realm. We evaluated the overall influence and spatial variation of species richness, ecoregion extent, intervention and species at risk on functional diversity. Using ordinary least squares and geographically weighted regression modeling approaches, we found that intervened areas and threatened and non-threatened species are the most influential overall drivers of functional diversity. However, we also detected that these variables do not operate equally across scales. Our local analyses indicated both that the variation explained and local coefficients vary spatially depending on the ecoregion and major habitat type. As estimates of functional diversity are based on current distribution of all mammals, negative influence of intervened areas and positive influence of non-threatened species may reflect a potential degradation of functional processes for some ecosystems. Most generally, the negative influence of intervention together with the influence of threatened species indicates that some areas are currently more susceptible to functional diversity loss. Our results help to pinpoint key areas requiring urgent conservation action to reduce natural land-cover loss and areas where threatened species play influential roles on ecosystem functioning.

Global trade‐offs of functional redundancy and functional dispersion for birds and mammals

“…Ecoregions are geographical units based on delineations in taxonomic compositions, inferred evolutionary histories and shared climatic domains (Olson et al, 2001). Ecoregions are a compelling spatial unit in representing the best available global measure of coherent, spatially bounded, biologically derived systems (Olson & Dinerstein, 2002) and have close relationships with taxonomic and functional compositions (Belmaker & Jetz, 2013;González-Maya, Martínez-Meyer, Medelloín, & Ceballos, 2017). In addition, ecoregions respect spatial changes in ecosystem attributes, disturbance regimes and species interactions (González-Maya et al, 2017;Olson et al, 2001), and changes in ecoregions can propagate across the entire biosphere (Barnosky et al, 2012;Peters et al, 2009).…”

“…Ecoregions are a compelling spatial unit in representing the best available global measure of coherent, spatially bounded, biologically derived systems (Olson & Dinerstein, 2002) and have close relationships with taxonomic and functional compositions (Belmaker & Jetz, 2013;González-Maya, Martínez-Meyer, Medelloín, & Ceballos, 2017). In addition, ecoregions respect spatial changes in ecosystem attributes, disturbance regimes and species interactions (González-Maya et al, 2017;Olson et al, 2001), and changes in ecoregions can propagate across the entire biosphere (Barnosky et al, 2012;Peters et al, 2009). Furthermore, ecoregions are widely used to guide global conservation investments, assessments and action (Funk & Fa, 2010;Watson, Iwamura, & Butt, 2013).…”

Beyond specimens: linking biological collections, functional ecology and biodiversity conservation

“…In doing so, functional differences that species perform in ecosystems can be accounted (Petchey & Gaston 2002). Functional diversity offers a basis to compare different land use scenarios, being idoneous to obtain information in order to achieve a comprehensive conservation planning (González-Maya et al 2017). Previously, museum specimens contributed to the delimitation of hotspots and ecoregions as well as the identification of priority conservation areas (Davy 2005), mainly estimating species richness despite of the natural sampling biases associated to the biological collections (Engemann et al 2015).…”

Diversidad funcional en los mamíferos de México e Integridad Ecosistémica

“…La asociación entre los caracteres de las especies y los atributos ambientales está demostrando ser esencial para predecir la respuesta de los ensambles de especies al impacto humano, debido a que una gran cantidad de funciones están asociadas a caracteres particulares que poseen las especies (Sekercioglu et al, 2004;González-Maya et al, 2017). Por ejemplo, el papel que tienen los carnívoros como depredadores o los nectarívoros como polinizadores, depende de caracteres que están asociados con su grupo trófico (Duffy, 2002;Casula et al, 2006;Farias y Jaksic 2009.…”

“…Particularmente en los mamíferos existen análisis dónde se han identificado caracteres asociados con su condición de vulnerabilidad y que son congruentes con las categorías de riesgo definidas a escala global (González-Suárez et al, 2013) o continental (Goncalves et al, 2017;González-Maya et al, 2017). Al respecto, en el neotrópico americano se ha encontrado una relación negativa entre la diversidad funcional y el monto de área intervenida por el hombre (González-Maya et al, 2017). En México confluyen componentes Neotropicales y del Neártico, y se ha evaluado cómo es que los diferentes tipos de caracteres se asocian diferencialmente con un gradiente de degradación (Munguía et al, 2016).…”