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- Title
Low Functional β-Diversity Despite High Taxonomic β-Diversity among Tropical Estuarine Fish Communities.
- Authors
Villéger, Sébastien; Miranda, Julia Ramos; Hernandez, Domingo Flores; Mouillot, David
- Abstract
The concept of β-diversity, defined as dissimilarity among communities, has been widely used to investigate biodiversity patterns and community assembly rules. However, in ecosystems with high taxonomic β-diversity, due to marked environmental gradients, the level of functional β-diversity among communities is largely overlooked while it may reveal processes shaping community structure. Here, decomposing biodiversity indices into a (local) and c (regional) components, we estimated taxonomic and functional β-diversity among tropical estuarine fish communities, through space and time. We found extremely low functional β-diversity values among fish communities (<1.5%) despite high dissimilarity in species composition and species dominance. Additionally, in contrast to the high β and γ taxonomic diversities, a and c functional diversities were very close to the minimal value. These patterns were caused by two dominant functional groups which maintained a similar functional structure over space and time, despite the strong dissimilarity in taxonomic structure along environmental gradients. Our findings suggest that taxonomic and functional β-diversity deserve to be quantified simultaneously since these two facets can show contrasting patterns and the differences can in turn shed light on community assembly rules.
- Subjects
ANIMAL communities; ESTUARINE fishes; BIODIVERSITY; BIOTIC communities; FISHES; AQUATIC animals; TAXONOMY
- Publication
PLoS ONE, 2012, Vol 7, Issue 7, p1
- ISSN
1932-6203
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0040679