Low spatial congruence between temporal functional β‐diversity and temporal taxonomic and phylogenetic β‐diversity in British avifauna

Abstract

Assessing spatial and temporal patterns of biodiversity change is essential to understand how communities vary over time and confront to environmental changes for the resilience of ecosystem functioning. We use data from two bird atlases of Britain collected during the breeding periods 1988–1991 and 2008–2011 to measure temporal β‐diversity of taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic dimensions and examine the relationship and the level of congruence of the three dimensions of temporal β‐diversity and their respective partitioned components (turnover‐nestedness). Temporal β‐diversity, turnover and nestedness patterns were highly congruent for the taxonomic and phylogenetic dimension, although these dimensions were weakly associated with the functional dimension. We found higher levels of temporal changes for the taxonomic (mean Jaccard β‐diversity 0.27) and phylogenetic (mean Jaccard β‐diversity 0.21) dimensions than for the functional dimension (mean Jaccard β‐diversity 0.09), implying that despite the changes in species composition the functional composition of the communities remained less affected. For taxonomic and phylogenetic dimensions, turnover contributed more than nestedness to shaping β‐diversity, while for functional β‐diversity the two components contributed similarly. Communities at higher altitudes were also more functionally similar in 20 years but with more changes in taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity possibly due to environmental filtering. We hypothesize that the low congruence might be due to species with extreme trait values persisting throughout time and retaining the volume of functional space and thus contributing to the low temporal change of functional diversity despite the high levels of change in species composition, perhaps an indication of functional “stability.”

Assessing taxonomic and functional change in British breeding bird assemblages over time

“…Individual assemblages changed, often substantially, between 1970 and 2010, mainly driven by the turnover of species and functional diversity. This suggests that species in local assemblages were replaced rather than lost systematically, consistent with previous work on temporal patterns of community change (Antão et al., 2020; Blowes et al., 2019; Dornelas et al., 2014, 2018; Nunes et al., 2020; Petchey et al., 2007; Tinoco et al., 2021; Tsianou et al., 2021). Functional change was slightly lower on average than taxonomic change across the assemblages, highlighting that the assemblages were less functionally disturbed despite the taxonomic change (see also Tsianou et al., 2021).…”

“…Individual assemblages changed, often substantially, between 1970 and 2010, mainly driven by the turnover of species and functional diversity. This suggests that species in local assemblages were replaced rather than lost systematically, consistent with previous work on temporal patterns of community change (Antão et al, 2020;Blowes et al, 2019;Dornelas et al, 2014Dornelas et al, , 2018Nunes et al, 2020;Petchey et al, 2007;Tinoco et al, 2021;Tsianou et al, 2021).…”

“…Functional change was slightly lower on average than taxonomic change across the assemblages, highlighting that the assemblages were less functionally disturbed despite the taxonomic change (see also Tsianou et al, 2021). However, these results do not necessarily imply that functional redundancy was high in all assemblages.…”

Understanding the relative roles of local environmental, geo‐climatic and spatial factors for taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic β‐diversity of stream fishes in a large basin, Northeast China

“…Another interesting finding was that the correlation between taxonomic and phylogenetic β ‐diversity was extremely strong (Mantel r range .906 ~ .994), and some researchers have recently confirmed the same results (Qian et al, 2021 ; Tsianou et al, 2021 ), supporting our second hypothesis (H2). Branco et al ( 2020 ) pointed out that taxonomic and phylogenetic β ‐diversity are scale correlated.…”

Replacement drives native β‐diversity of British avifauna, while richness differences shape alien β‐diversity

“…Studies exploring the temporal β-diversity (i.e. changes of the species composition within hectad from one period to another) of birds have shown changes in species composition driven by turnover occurred between 1968-1972and 1988-1992(White et al, 2018), 1988-1992and 2008-2011(Tsianou et al, 2021), and 1968-1972and 2008-2011(Wayman et al, 2022.…”