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518 results for “community functions.”
Data from: Tropical deforestation reduces plant mating quality by shifting the functional composition of pollinator communities
<p>Deforestation can impact the quality of pollen received by target plants (<i>i.e., </i>delivery of incompatible pollen, self-pollen, or pollen from closely related individuals). Such reductions in plant mating quality may be direct, when deforestation reduces plant population size and the availability of pollen donors, or indirect, when decreased mating quality results, for example, from shifts in the composition of the pollinator community. As most flowering plants depend on animal pollinators for reproduction, there is a need to understand the direct and indirect links between deforestation, pollinator community composition, and plant mating quality.</p> <p>We quantified the direct, pollen-donor-mediated and indirect, pollinator-mediated effects of deforestation on mating quality in <i>Heliconia tortuosa</i>, a tropical herb pollinated by low- and high-mobility hummingbirds. We used a confirmatory path analysis to test the hypothesis that deforestation (amount of forest cover and forest patch size) influenced mating quality (haplotype diversity of pollen pools, outcrossing, and biparental inbreeding) directly and indirectly through functional shifts in the composition of pollinator communities (proportion of high-mobility hummingbirds).</p> <p>We found that deforestation triggered functional shifts in the composition of pollinator communities, as the proportion of high-mobility hummingbirds increased significantly with the amount of forest cover and forest patch size. The composition of the pollinator community affected mating quality, as the haplotype diversity of pollen pools increased significantly with the proportion of high-mobility hummingbirds, while biparental inbreeding decreased significantly. Although we did not detect any significant direct, pollen-donor-mediated effects of deforestation on mating quality, reductions in the amount of forest cover and forest patch size resulted in functional shifts that filtered out high-mobility hummingbirds from the pollinator community, thereby reducing mating quality indirectly.</p> <p><i>Synthesis. </i>Deforestation primarily influenced plant mating quality through a cascading effect mediated by functional shifts in the composition of the pollinator community. Our results indicate that plant mating quality strongly depends on the composition of local pollinator communities. Functional shifts that filter out highly mobile and effective pollinators may reduce the transfer of genetically diverse pollen loads from unrelated plants. Such shifts may have pronounced effects on plant population dynamics and disrupt genetic connectivity.</p>
Diversity of response and effect traits provides complementary information about avian community dynamics linked to ecological function
<p>Functional diversity metrics based on species traits are widely used to investigate ecosystem functioning. In theory, such metrics have different implications depending on whether they are calculated from traits mediating responses to environmental change (response traits) or those regulating function (effect traits), yet trait choice in diversity metrics is rarely scrutinized. Here, we compile effect and response traits for British bird species supplying two key ecological services – seed dispersal and insect predation – to assess the relationship between functional diversity and both mean and stability of community abundance over time. As predicted, functional diversity correlates with stability in community abundance of seed dispersers when calculated using response traits. However, we found a negative relationship between functional diversity and mean community abundance of seed dispersers when calculated using effect traits. Subsequently, when combining all traits together, we found inconsistent results with functional diversity correlating with reduced stability in insectivores, but greater stability in seed dispersers. Our findings suggest that trait choice should be considered more carefully when applying such metrics in ecosystem management.</p>
Data from: Contrasting patterns of functional diversity in coffee root fungal communities associated with organic and conventionally-managed fields
<p>The structure and function of fungal communities in the coffee rhizosphere is shaped by crop environment. Because coffee can be grown along a management continuum from conventional application of pesticides and fertilizers in full sun to organic management in a shaded understory, we used coffee fields to hold host constant while comparing rhizosphere fungal communities in markedly different environmental conditions with regard to shade and inputs. We characterized the shade and soil environment in 25 fields under conventional, organic or transitional management in two regions of Costa Rica. We amplified the ITS2 region of fungal DNA from coffee roots in these fields and characterized the rhizosphere fungal community via high-throughput sequencing. Sequences were assigned to guilds to determine differences in functional diversity and trophic structure among coffee field environments. Organic fields had more shade, a greater richness of shade tree species, more leaf litter, and were less acidic, with lower soil nitrate availability and higher soil copper, calcium, and magnesium than conventionally-managed fields, although differences between organic and conventionally-managed fields in shade, calcium and magnesium depended on region. Differences in richness and community composition of rhizosphere fungi between organic and conventionally-managed fields were also correlated with shade, soil acidity, nitrate, and copper. Trophic structure differed with coffee field management. Saprotrophs, plant pathogens, and mycoparasites were more diverse and plant pathogens were more abundant in organic than in conventionally-managed fields, while saprotroph-plant pathogens were more abundant in conventionally-managed fields. These differences reflected environmental differences and depended on region.</p> <p><b>IMPORTANCE</b></p> <p>Rhizosphere fungi play key roles in ecosystems, as nutrient cyclers, pathogens, and mutualists, yet little is currently known about which environmental factors and how agricultural management shape rhizosphere fungal communities and their functional diversity. This field study of the coffee agroecosystem suggests that organic management not only fosters a greater overall diversity of fungi, but also maintains a greater richness of saprotrophic, plant pathogenic and mycoparasitic fungi that has implications for efficiency of nutrient cycling and regulation of plant pathogen populations in agricultural systems. As well as influencing community composition and richness of rhizosphere fungi, shade management and use of fungicides and synthetic fertilizers altered the trophic structure of the coffee agroecosystem.</p>
Data from: Functional traits, not productivity, predict openness to seedling recruitment in alpine plant communities under climatic warming
Understanding the degree to which plant communities are open to seedling recruitment is key to predicting how they will be impacted by climate change. We experimentally assessed whether communities assembled under colder climates were inherently more open to recruitment than warmer-climate communities, after controlling for differences in the current climate under which the communities were growing. We then tested whether variation in openness to recruitment could be explained by community biomass or by the plant functional traits of the community. The study was conducted in a climate grid of twelve grassland sites across southern Norway, differing systematically in temperature and precipitation. Along a 2000 mm precipitation gradient, we transplanted turfs with intact plant communities from alpine and sub-alpine sites into 2℃ warmer sites, and measured natural seedling emergence in these transplanted turfs vs. locally replanted control turfs at the transplant destination sites. Mixed effect models were used to assess the effect of origin (cold vs warm climate), biomass, and functional trait composition of the communities on seedling emergence. We further assessed variation in these effects across different climatic contexts (the temperature and precipitation gradients). Communities originating from colder climates were consistently more open to recruitment, with on average 44% more seedlings emerging, than the locally replanted control communities. The higher rates of seedling emergence in colder-climate communities were attributable to systematic differences in plant functional traits, but not in biomass. The colder-climate communities were composed of species with smaller leaves and lower maximum plant heights; traits that may make these communities less effective at excluding new recruits. These trait-related responses were not significant in the warmest sites and did not very across the precipitation gradient. Our results suggest that alpine species lack the competitive effect traits required to make their communities resistant to invasion by novel competitors under climate change.
Data from: Do temperate tree species diversity and identity influence soil microbial community function and composition?
Studies of biodiversity-ecosystem function in treed ecosystems have generally focused on aboveground functions. The present study investigates inter-trophic links between tree diversity and soil microbial community function and composition.We examined how microbial communities in surface mineral soil responded to experimental gradients of tree species richness (SR), functional diversity (FD), community-weighted mean trait value (CWM) and tree identity. The site was a 4-yr-old common garden experiment near Montreal, Canada, consisting of deciduous and evergreen tree species mixtures. Microbial community composition, community-level physiological profiles (CLPP) and respiration were evaluated using phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis and the MicroRespTM system, respectively. The relationship between tree species richness and glucose induced respiration (GIR), basal respiration (BR), metabolic quotient (qCO2) followed a positive but saturating shape. Microbial communities associated with species mixtures were more active (basal respiration (BR)), with higher biomass (glucose induced respiration (GIR)), and used a greater number of carbon sources than monocultures. Communities associated with deciduous tree species used a greater number of carbon sources than those associated with evergreen species, suggesting a greater soil carbon storage capacity. There were no differences in microbial composition (PLFA) between monocultures and SR mixtures. The FD and the CWM of several functional traits affected both BR and GIR. In general, the CWM of traits had stronger effects than did FD, suggesting that certain traits of dominant species have more effect on ecosystem processes than does FD. Both the functions of GIR and BR were positively related to aboveground tree community productivity. Both tree diversity (SR) and identity (species and functional identity – leaf habit) affected soil microbial community respiration, biomass and composition. For the first time, we identified functional traits related to life history strategy, as well as root traits that influence another trophic level, soil microbial community function, via effects on BR and GIR.
Data from: Functional traits and community composition: a comparison among community-weighted means, weighted correlations, and multilevel models
1. Of the several approaches that are used to analyze functional trait-environment relationships, the most popular is community-weighted mean regressions (CWMr) in which species trait values are averaged at the site level and then regressed against environmental variables. Other approaches include model-based methods and weighted correlations of different metrics of trait-environment associations, the best known of which is the fourth-corner correlation method. 2. We investigated these three general statistical approaches for trait-environment associations: CWMr, five weighted correlation metrics (Peres-Neto et al. 2017), and two multilevel models (MLM) using four different methods for computing p-values. We first compared the methods applied to a plant community dataset. To determine the validity of the statistical conclusions, we then performed a simulation study. 3. CWMr gave highly significant associations for both traits, while the other methods gave a mix of support. CWMr had inflated type I errors for some simulation scenarios, implying that the significant results for the data could be spurious. The weighted correlation methods had generally good type I error control but had low power. One of the multilevel models, that from Jamil et al. (2013), had both good type I error control and high power when an appropriate method was used to obtain p-values. In particular, if there was no correlation among species in their abundances among sites, a parametric bootstrap likelihood ratio test (LRT) gave the best power. When there was correlation among species in their abundances, a conditional parametric LRT had correct type I errors but had lower power. 4. There is no overall best method for identifying trait-environment associations. For the simple task of testing, one-by-one, associations between single environmental variables and single traits, the weighted correlations with permutation tests all had good type I error control, and their ease of implementation is an advantage. For the more complex task of multivariate analyses and model fitting, and when high statistical power is needed, we recommend MLM2 (Jamil et al. 2013); however, care must be taken to ensure against inflated type I errors. Because CWMr exhibited highly inflated type I error rates, it should always be avoided. 2. We investigated these three general statistical approaches for trait-environment associations: CWMr, five weighted correlation metrics (Peres-Neto et al. 2017), and two multilevel models (MLM) using five different methods for computing p-values. We first compared the methods applied to a plant community dataset. To determine the validity of the statistical conclusions, we then performed a simulation study. 3. CWMr gave highly significant associations for both traits, while the other methods gave a mix of support. CWMr had inflated type I errors for some simulation scenarios. The weighted correlation methods had generally good type I error control but had low power. One of the multilevel models, that from Jamil et al. (2013), had both good type I error control and high power when an appropriate method was used to obtain p-values. In particular, if there was no correlation among species in their abundances among sites, a parametric bootstrap likelihood ratio test (LRT) gave the best power. When there was correlation among species in their abundances, a conditional parametric LRT had correct type I errors but suffered from low power. 4. There is no overall best method for identifying trait-environment associations. For the simple task of testing, one-by-one, associations between single environmental variables and single traits, the weighted correlations with permutation tests all had good type I error control, and their ease of implementation is an advantage. For the more complex task of multivariate analyses and model fitting, and when high statistical power is needed, we recommend MLM2 (Jamil et al. 2013); however, care must be taken to ensure against inflated type I errors. Because CWMr exhibited highly inflated type I error rates, it should be avoided.
Ecoregional patterns of protist communities in mineral and organic soils: assembly processes, functional traits and diversity of testate amoebae in Northern Eurasia
<p>TA_Traits.csv file includes trait data for testate amoebae. TA_Abundance.csv file includes environmental variables (soil type and region) and relative abundance data of testate amoebae.</p>
Dataset for paper "Interpreting the shifts in forest structure, plant community composition, diversity, and functional identity by using remote sensing-derived wildfire severity"
<p>Interpreting the shifts in forest structure, plant community composition, diversity, and functional identity by using remote sensing-derived wildfire severity . New collected data</p>
Finding functionality: Rasch analysis of the Functionality Appreciation Scale in community-dwelling adults in the US
<div class="abstract-content selected"> <div class="abstract-content selected"> <p><strong class="sub-title">Introduction: </strong>The Functionality Appreciation Scale (FAS) measures an individual's appreciation for the functions their body can perform, regardless of the individual's physical limitations. Prior studies reported on internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, and exploratory or confirmatory factor analyses, but Rasch analysis has not yet been performed to evaluate the structural validity of the FAS.</p> <p><strong class="sub-title">Methods: </strong>We recruited community-dwelling adults at the Minnesota State Fair and through contact lists of participants identifying interest in research done in the Brain Body Mind Lab (University of Minnesota). Community-dwelling adults with spinal cord injury (SCI) completed the FAS over Zoom. We analyzed the FAS using Rasch Measurement Theory, which produced the following outputs: item, and person fit, targeting, unidimensionality, person separation reliability (PSR), local item dependence (LID), principal component analysis of residuals (PCAR), and differential item functioning (DIF).</p> <p><strong class="sub-title">Results: </strong>We recruited 567 participants (average age 52.15 ± 17.5 years, 63.84% women), among which 14 adults with SCI. After rescoring 3 items and deleting 1 item, the FAS had good person and item fit (except item 4). The PCAR and subsequent paired <em>t</em>-tests (3.53%) confirmed the unidimensionality of the scale. There was no DIF and only one item pair had LID (item 5-6). PSR was 0.75, reflecting a capacity to differentiate groups of people with high or low functionality appreciation levels. However, there was a significant ceiling effect (28.04%) and the person mean location was 3.06 ± 2.07 logits, indicating the FAS is too easy for community-dwelling adults in the US.</p> <p><strong class="sub-title">Discussion: </strong>The 6-item Rasch-based FAS demonstrated unidimensionality, good item fit (except item 4) and person fit, but the FAS will require more difficult items to be added to improve the targeting of the scale, and better reliability.</p> </div> </div>
Bioenergy cropping systems shape ant community composition and functional roles
<p>R code and partial data for Haan, Helms, & Landis 2023, Bioenergy cropping systems shape ant community composition and functional roles, to be published in Frontiers in Conservation Science. The ant species list we use to generate the species matrix was uploaded previously (10.5281/zenodo.8215581) in association with another manuscript (Haan et al. 2023, Science Advances, Contrasting effects of bioenergy crops on biodiversity). Therefore here we include a small table with trait information for each species along with the R code used specifically for this manuscript.</p>
Functioning of a canopy-dominated intertidal community during emersion: highly productive but heterotrophic at the annual scale - R code
<p>This repository contains the data and code for our paper:</p> <p>Claire Golléty, Jon Yearsley, Aline Migné, Dominique Davoult (2024). Functioning of a canopy-dominated intertidal community during emersion: highly productive but heterotrophic at the annual scale. Marine Biology<br>https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-024-04395-5</p>
Species richness and intraspecific variation interactively shape marine diatom community functioning
<p>The data and code provided here is used to analyze and visualize all data associated with the manuscript "Species richness and intraspecific variation interactively shape marine diatom community functioning" which is under review at L&O Letters and is authored by Patrick K. Thomas, Marrit Jacob, Esteben Acevedo-Trejos, Helmut Hillebrand, and Maren Striebel.</p> <p>Data should be analyzed in R or R studio. The code should execute automatically with no modifications by the user as long as the four csv files are placed in the same working directory that R is set to. The R project (.Rproj) file may also be opened directly to create an R project that is automatically set to the correct directory.</p> <p>ABSTRACT:<br>Biodiversity generally increases productivity in ecosystems; however, this is mediated by the specific functional traits that come with biodiversity loss or gain and how these traits interact with environmental conditions. Most biodiversity studies evaluate effects of species richness alone, despite our increasing understanding that intraspecific diversity can have equally strong impacts. Here, we manipulate both species richness and intraspecific richness (i.e., number of distinct strains) in marine diatom communities to explicitly test the relative importance of species and strain richness for biomass and trait diversity in six distinct temperature/nutrient environments. We show that species and strain richness both have significant effects on biomass and growth rates, but more importantly they interact with each other, indicating that cross-species diversity effects depend on within-species diversity and vice versa. This intertwined relationship thus calls for more integrative approaches quantifying the relative importance of distinct biodiversity components and environmental context on ecosystem functioning.</p>
Data from: Effects of pesticides on soil bacterial, fungal and protist communities, soil functions and crop quality in vineyards
<p>Pesticides can have unintentional effects on non-target organisms and change biotic communities. Such changes might be particularly important in soil microbial communities which drive many ecosystem functions and may affect crop quality. Here, we investigated, in a 3-year study, how vegetation control (by herbicide application) and soil copper content (from long-term copper-based fungicide application), affect biodiversity and the community structure of soil bacteria, fungi and protists and associated soil functions (respiration, decomposition) in Swiss vineyards. Furthermore, we determined the effects of these two management practices on grape quality as the most direct ecosystem service to farmers. Across all study years, the community composition of microorganisms was affected by herbicide application, however, a significant loss of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) was only observed in fungi and protists. Soil copper content reduced OTU richness of bacteria and protists in some years but had no significant effect on fungal richness. Copper changed the community composition in all three groups of soil microorganisms. While we found no effect of copper on soil functions, herbicide application reduced microbial respiration and biomass by about 39% and 45% respectively. However, decomposition rates remained virtually unchanged by any pesticide. Yeast assimilable nitrogen (YAN) levels in grape must were below the critical threshold of 140 mg/L in 40% of the vineyards without herbicide application and the variety Chasselas , whereas in vineyards with herbicide application it was only 20%. Synthesis and applications: Application of pesticides led to changes in richness and composition of soil microbial communities and directly reduced some soil functions (microbial biomass and respiration), but not all (decomposition). Some grape quality parameters can be indirectly enhanced by pesticide application, highlighting the trade-off between the interests of nature conservation and the interests of the farmer. Balancing these two diverging interests requires the establishment of alternative vineyard management allowing reduced pesticide application.</p>
Supplementary datasets for eRNA community and Functional annotations
<p>Changes in land use and agricultural intensification threaten biodiversity and ecosystem functioning of small water bodies. We studied 67 kettle holes (KH) in an agricultural landscape in northeastern Germany using landscape-scale metatranscriptomics, to understand the responses of active bacterial, archaeal, and eukaryotic communities, to land-use type. These KH are proxies of the millions of small standing water bodies of glacial origin spread across the northern hemisphere. Like other landscapes in Europe, the study area has been used for intensive agriculture since the 1950s. In contrast to a parallel eDNA study which revealed the homogenization of biodiversity across KH conceivably resulting from long-lasting intensive agriculture, land-use type affected the structure of the active KH communities during spring crop fertilization, but not a month later. This effect was more pronounced in eukaryotes than in bacteria. In contrast, gene expression patterns did not differ between months or across land-use type, suggesting a high degree of functional redundancy across the KH communities. Variability in gene expression was best explained by active bacterial and eukaryotic community structures, suggesting that these changes in functioning are primarily driven by interactions between organisms. Our results show that influences of the surrounding landscape result in temporary changes in the activity of different community members. Thus, even in KH where biodiversity has been homogenized, communities continue to respond to land management. This needs to be considered when developing sustainable management options for restoration purposes and for successful mitigation of further biodiversity loss in agricultural landscapes.</p>
Changes in community-weighted trait mean, functional diversity, soil chemical properties and temperature along an elevational gradient in Tenerife, Canary Islands
<p>This dataset comprises community-weighted trait means and functional diversity of leaf traits, chemical soil properties and temperature recorded in roadside (disturbed) and interior (less disturbed) plots, along an elevational gradient of 2,300 m in Tenerife, Canary Islands. The leaf traits measured were specific leaf area (SLA), nitrogen, nitrogen to phosphorus ratio, leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and carbon to phosphorus ratio. The soil chemical properties measured were pH, nitrogen, nitrogen to phosphorus ratio, carbon to phosphorus ratio, calcium, potassium, magnesium and cation exchange capacity. Also the scores of the three first axes derived from a PCA analysis including the soil chemical properties are included. The temperature variables consist of bioclimatic variables Bio10 (mean temperature of the warmest quarter) and Bio11 (mean temperature of the coldest quarter). This dataset has been used for the analysis presented in Ratier Backes et al. (2021).</p>
Data from: Price equations for understanding the response of ecosystem function to community change
<p>Biodiversity-ecosystem function research in natural ecosystems would benefit from new theoretical and analytical tools that match common characteristics of observational community data. To this end, we developed a novel, abundance-based version of the ecological Price equation in both discrete and continuous forms. As part of the presentation of this new method, we conducted two demonstration analyses.</p> <p>The first analysis focuses on pollination of watermelon by wild bees. We net-collected wild pollinator specimens from standard areas of flowering watermelon crop at 16 replicated farms in 2012. We also measured how many pollen grains each bee species deposited per visit. These per-visit pollen deposition rates were estimated as a genus-level property, as is common for landscape pollination studies. To determine total pollination for each bee species at each site, we multiplied pollinator visitation rates and per-visit pollen deposition. The attached data includes site by species matrices for the abundance (watermelon_com.csv) and per-capita pollen deposition (watermelon_fun.csv) of bee species.</p> <p>The second analysis focuses on changes in total community biomass of stream invertebrates collected from 25 sites along a strong, continuous pollution gradient. These data were previously published by Pomeranz et al. (2019), accessible at the Dryad link given below. Specimens were individually measured and assigned to one of six functional groups. Finer taxonomic resolution is available in the original study, but we use functional groups here to get enough data to effectively model. The attached data includes site by functional group matrices for the abundance (stream_inverts.csv) and per-capita biomass (stream_invert_size.csv) of stream invertebrate functional groups, and a third .csv which describes the level of pollution at each site (steam_data.csv).</p> <p>The code is a single R code file which produces the results and figures found in the manuscript. We have also included a README and several .csv files (those described above) that need to be read in.</p> <p>These data may be useful for other analyses of variation in ecosystem function across sites. We stress that the stream invertebrate data were collected by Pomeranz et al. (2019) and they should be cited for any use those data. The relevant link to access their data is: https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.v6g985s</p>
Distance decay 2.0 – a global synthesis of taxonomic and functional decay in ecological communities
<p>Datasets used in the analysis of the manuscript by Graco-Roza, C., Aarnio, S., Abrego, N., Acosta, A. T., Alahuhta, J., Altman, J., ... & Soininen, J. (2022). Distance decay 2.0–a global synthesis of taxonomic and functional turnover in ecological communities.<em> Global Ecology and Biogeography.</em></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>raw_data.zip - </strong>Includes the raw datasets used in the analysis. </p> <p><strong>processed_data.xlsx - </strong>Includes the results from the distance decay analysis, specifically: </p> <p>- Dataset : dataset code (same as in raw_data)</p> <p>- Beta_type: The component of beta diversity (i.e., total similarity, replacement, richness differences)</p> <p>- Level : Taxonomic (TAX) or functional (FUN)</p> <p>- Based: Occurrence (occ) or Abundance (abund)</p> <p>- Organism: Code used to describe organisms (see Appendix S1 of the paper)</p> <p>- Realm: Aquatic, Terrestrial, or Freshwaters</p> <p>- Body_size </p> <p>- Dispersal_mode: Seeds, Passive or Active</p> <p>- Latitude: Mean latitude of the dataset (average of all data points)</p> <p>- Latitude_range Distance in kilometres between the two vertically most distant points.</p> <p>- Longitude_range: Distance in kilometres between the two horizontally most distant points.</p> <p>- spa_min: minimum distance between sites (in kilometres) </p> <p>- spa_mean: average distance between sites (in kilometres) </p> <p>- spa_max: maximum distance between sites (in kilometres)</p> <p>- ext: area in kilometres covered by all sites in the dataset</p> <p>- n_sites: Number of sites in each dataset</p> <p>- n_var: Number of environmental variables in each dataset</p> <p>- gamma_spe: Number of species observed in each dataset</p> <p>- gamma_trait: Volume of the hypervolume constructed using the traits in each dataset</p> <p>- n_traits: Number of traits in each dataset</p> <p>- Intercept_spa: Intercept of GLM including community similarity and spatial distances</p> <p>- Slope_Spa: Slope of GLM including community similarity and spatial distances</p> <p>- R2_spa: R² of GLM including community similarity and spatial distances</p> <p>- Intercept_env: Intercept of GLM including community similarity and environmental distances</p> <p>- Slope_env: Slope of GLM including community similarity and environmental distances</p> <p>- R2_env: R² of GLM including community similarity and environmental distances</p> <p>- Mantel_spa: Mantel statistics of community similarity and spatial distances</p> <p>- spa_signif: Significance of Mantel statistics considering community similarity and spatial distances</p> <p>- Mantel_env: Mantel statistics considering community similarity and environmental distances</p> <p>- env_signif: Significance of Mantel statistics considering community similarity and environmental distances</p> <p><strong>Null_models.zip - </strong>Includes the results from the null models for each dataset.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p>
Trends in functional composition of small mammal communities across millennial time scales
<p>Rich fossil deposits of the late Quaternary help us understand responses of biodiversity to global change and thus predict the future of ecosystems. Studies from the late Quaternary, however, are often limited taxonomically, geographically (often one site), and by their use of largely taxon-based metrics that do not inform about ecosystem-level consequences of biodiversity change. Here, we compare change in functional composition of small mammal communities at El Mirón Cave (Spain) and Samwell Cave (California, USA) across the last 22,000 years, and examine their relationships with climate and vegetation. We find opposing temporal trends between the two locations. European small mammal communities occupied increasingly greater trait space, driven by increases in arboreal granivory and frugivory as ground-dwelling herbivory declined toward the late Holocene. North American communities occupied smaller trait space as ground-level foraging and insectivory increased and arboreal herbivory and mean body mass declined. Our results point to the importance of the interaction between climate change and vegetation shifts for explaining changes in small mammal functional diversity, through their synergistic impacts on individual traits. Specifically, increasing temperature across both continents likely led to increases in nocturnal activity and declines in assemblage mean body mass, while transition to mixed forest (El Mirón) or open woodland (Samwell) resulted in increasing structural complexity of vegetation that potentially supported more diverse community-level dietary characteristics. These results demonstrate the ability of a trait-based approach to identify how environmental variables correlate with changes in community functional composition through time and gain insight into the potential consequences of environmental change for ecosystem functioning.</p>
Data from: Forest loss and treeless matrices cause the functional impoverishment of sapling communities in old-growth forest patches across tropical regions
<p>Landscape-level disturbances, such as forest loss, can profoundly alter the functional composition and diversity of biotic assemblages. In fact, the landscape-moderated functional trait selection (LMFTS) hypothesis states that landscape-level disturbances may act as environmental filters that select a set of species with disturbance-adapted attributes while causing the loss of species with disturbance-sensitive attributes, ultimately compromising ecosystem functioning. However, the impact of landscape patterns on the functional composition and diversity of tropical regenerating trees (saplings) is unknown.</p> <p>Using a multiscale approach to identify the best spatial scale (i.e. the scale of effect), we tested the effect of forest cover, matrix openness and forest patch density (fragmentation) on functional composition and functional diversity of tree saplings in old-growth forest patches (n = 59) in three Mexican rainforest regions with different degree of deforestation. For 368 species and ~23,000 individuals, we compiled information from global and national databases on six functional traits related to seed dispersal and plant establishment and calculated their community abundance-weighted mean (CWMs) and three complementary functional diversity indices.</p> <p>Forest loss and matrix openness reduced functional richness and evenness, but only in the two most deforested regions. Overall, fragmentation had contrasting effects on functional diversity and composition, but correlated negatively with some functional traits in the most deforested region. Importantly, in the regions with high-to-intermediate degree of deforestation, functional composition experienced major changes: maximum height, seed mass, fruit size and wood density decreased, and SLA increased, in forest patches surrounded by open matrices in highly deforested and fragmented landscapes. This caused a shift of community traits towards more disturbed-adapted attributes.</p> <p><em>Synthesis and applications</em>. In agreement with the LMFTS hypothesis, our results confirm that landscape modifications in regions undergoing high and long-lasting deforestation greatly impoverish the functional composition and diversity of sapling communities. The shift from communities composed mainly by conservative attributes towards communities with a higher prevalence of disturbance-adapted attributes disrupts the future community structure and jeopardizes critical ecosystem functions. Management practices focused on preventing deforestation, increasing forest cover, and promoting treed matrices are necessary to preserve the functionality of these species-rich but increasingly threatened rainforests.</p>
Extreme environments filter functionally rich communities of Atlantic Forest treefrogs along altitudinal and latitudinal gradients
<p>Understanding how environmental filtering and biotic interactions structure communities across elevational and latitudinal gradients is still a matter of debate. To provide insight into their relative importance, we explore the mismatch between three dimensions of biodiversity (taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic), and compare their patterns to null models of random community assembly. We focus on a highly diverse tropical group: the tree frogs (hylids) of the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. For that, we combined geographic distribution data with phylogenetic and trait information for 158 species to produce maps of the three dimensions of diversity. We show that communities of tree frogs of the Hylidae family tend to have high functional richness along the Atlantic Forest, potentially driven by niche partitioning. However, environmental filtering gains importance in extreme environments, both at high elevations and higher latitudes. In these areas of the forest, clustering of both functional and phylogenetic diversity is observed. Trait overdispersion is found in areas of contact between vegetation types, or of adjacent biomes, reflecting the encounter of amphibian species adapted to distinct environmental conditions and landscape configurations. Considering all three dimensions of diversity along with multiple axes of environmental variation allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the processes shaping amphibian community assembly in this biodiversity hotspot.</p>
ScienceDex guides
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These curated guides explain access requirements, typical timelines, costs, and reuse considerations for widely used research datasets.
Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.