Inferring local ecological processes amid species pool influences

Lessard, Jean‐Philippe; Belmaker, Jonathan; Myers, Jonathan A.; Chase, Jonathan M.; Rahbek, Carsten

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2012.07.006

Cited by 186 publications

(234 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Our study illustrates the complexity of processes underlying patterns of assemblage structure and perhaps provides an explanation for much of the idiosyncrasy and contingency observed in ecology (Lawton 1999;Vellend 2010;Chase and Myers 2011;Lessard et al 2012a). Our heuristic approach with multiple explicit species pool definitions is a first step in this direction.…”

Section: Species Pools and Assemblage Structure 85mentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Second, the species pool should be defined explicitly rather than arbitrarily (Graves and Gotelli 1983;Zobel 1997;Graves and Rahbek 2005). To address these issues, we defined species pools using exhaustive information on the geographic distributions of species and resampled those pools on the basis of either environmental affinities or dispersal probabilities (Lessard et al 2012a).…”

Section: Species Pools and Assemblage Structure 85mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This illustrates how the signature of environmental filtering might conceal that of competitive interactions. Later studies have extended this approach by comparing the outcome of several null models (Gotelli et al 2010), each derived from a different process-based species pool (Lessard et al 2012a(Lessard et al , 2012b. Here, we use a similar comparative approach as a heuristic tool to explore the potential influence of multiple processes on patterns of phylogenetic and trait assemblage structure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Process-Based Species Pools Reveal the Hidden Signature of Biotic Interactions Amid the Influence of Temperature Filtering

Lessard

Weinstein

Borregaard

et al. 2016

The American Naturalist

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Online enhancement: appendix. Dryad data: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t897q.abstract: A persistent challenge in ecology is to tease apart the influence of multiple processes acting simultaneously and interacting in complex ways to shape the structure of species assemblages. We implement a heuristic approach that relies on explicitly defining species pools and permits assessment of the relative influence of the main processes thought to shape assemblage structure: environmental filtering, dispersal limitations, and biotic interactions. We illustrate our approach using data on the assemblage composition and geographic distribution of hummingbirds, a comprehensive phylogeny and morphological traits. The implementation of several process-based species pool definitions in null models suggests that temperature-but not precipitation or dispersal limitation-acts as the main regional filter of assemblage structure. Incorporating this environmental filter directly into the definition of assemblage-specific species pools revealed an otherwise hidden pattern of phylogenetic evenness, indicating that biotic interactions might further influence hummingbird assemblage structure. Such hidden patterns of assemblage structure call for a reexamination of a multitude of phylogenetic-and trait-based studies that did not explicitly consider potentially important processes in their definition of the species pool. Our heuristic approach provides a transparent way to explore patterns and refine interpretations of the underlying causes of assemblage structure.

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Section: Species Pools and Assemblage Structure 85mentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Species Pools and Assemblage Structure 85mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Process-Based Species Pools Reveal the Hidden Signature of Biotic Interactions Amid the Influence of Temperature Filtering

Lessard

Weinstein

Borregaard

et al. 2016

The American Naturalist

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“…We recognize that FD values can be sensitive to properties such as the number and range of traits considered and that the outcome of certain FD analyses can also be sensitive to how the species pool is defined (15,27). In the present analysis, we necessarily began by using the archipelagic species pool, as we lack a more realistic basis for defining a regional species pool.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional biogeography of oceanic islands and the scaling of functional diversity in the Azores

Whittaker

Rigal

Borges

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

121

120

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Significance Biogeographic theory builds upon a long history of analyzing species-diversity patterns of remote islands, but no previous studies have attempted to investigate corresponding patterns in functional traits on islands. Our analyses of functional diversity (FD) for spiders and beetles in the Azorean archipelago reveal that FD increases with species richness, which, in turn scales with island area regardless of the taxa and distributional group considered (endemics, natives, and exotics). Our results also support the hypothesis that each group contributes to FD in proportion to their species richness and that, being dominant, exotic species have significantly extended the realized trait space of the Azorean islands. Further analyses in other archipelagos are needed to establish whether our findings are representative of oceanic islands.

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“…Since the definition of a species pool can impact our conclusions (Lessard et al. 2012), we repeated our analyses with different regional pool sizes (i.e., not including all of the sites along the gradients within countries). Nonetheless, our results were not sensitive to regional pool size (data not shown).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining variation in the leaf mass per area of dominant species across two contrasting tropical gradients in light of community assembly

Neyret

Bentley

Oliveras

et al. 2016

Ecology and Evolution

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Understanding variation in key functional traits across gradients in high diversity systems and the ecology of community changes along gradients in these systems is crucial in light of conservation and climate change. We examined inter‐ and intraspecific variation in leaf mass per area (LMA) of sun and shade leaves along a 3330‐m elevation gradient in Peru, and in sun leaves across a forest–savanna vegetation gradient in Brazil. We also compared LMA variance ratios (T‐statistics metrics) to null models to explore internal (i.e., abiotic) and environmental filtering on community structure along the gradients. Community‐weighted LMA increased with decreasing forest cover in Brazil, likely due to increased light availability and water stress, and increased with elevation in Peru, consistent with the leaf economic spectrum strategy expected in colder, less productive environments. A very high species turnover was observed along both environmental gradients, and consequently, the first source of variation in LMA was species turnover. Variation in LMA at the genus or family levels was greater in Peru than in Brazil. Using dominant trees to examine possible filters on community assembly, we found that in Brazil, internal filtering was strongest in the forest, while environmental filtering was observed in the dry savanna. In Peru, internal filtering was observed along 80% of the gradient, perhaps due to variation in taxa or interspecific competition. Environmental filtering was observed at cloud zone edges and in lowlands, possibly due to water and nutrient availability, respectively. These results related to variation in LMA indicate that biodiversity in species rich tropical assemblages may be structured by differential niche‐based processes. In the future, specific mechanisms generating these patterns of variation in leaf functional traits across tropical environmental gradients should be explored.

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Inferring local ecological processes amid species pool influences

Cited by 186 publications

References 66 publications

Process-Based Species Pools Reveal the Hidden Signature of Biotic Interactions Amid the Influence of Temperature Filtering

Process-Based Species Pools Reveal the Hidden Signature of Biotic Interactions Amid the Influence of Temperature Filtering

Functional biogeography of oceanic islands and the scaling of functional diversity in the Azores

Examining variation in the leaf mass per area of dominant species across two contrasting tropical gradients in light of community assembly

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