Silva Pedro Giovâni da, Hernández Malva Isabel Medina
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Departamento de Ecologia e Zoologia, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2015 Mar 30;10(3):e0123030. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0123030. eCollection 2015.
Community structure is driven by mechanisms linked to environmental, spatial and temporal processes, which have been successfully addressed using metacommunity framework. The relative importance of processes shaping community structure can be identified using several different approaches. Two approaches that are increasingly being used are functional diversity and community deconstruction. Functional diversity is measured using various indices that incorporate distinct community attributes. Community deconstruction is a way to disentangle species responses to ecological processes by grouping species with similar traits. We used these two approaches to determine whether they are improvements over traditional measures (e.g., species composition, abundance, biomass) for identification of the main processes driving dung beetle (Scarabaeinae) community structure in a fragmented mainland-island landscape in southern Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We sampled five sites in each of four large forest areas, two on the mainland and two on the island. Sampling was performed in 2012 and 2013. We collected abundance and biomass data from 100 sampling points distributed over 20 sampling sites. We studied environmental, spatial and temporal effects on dung beetle community across three spatial scales, i.e., between sites, between areas and mainland-island. The γ-diversity based on species abundance was mainly attributed to β-diversity as a consequence of the increase in mean α- and β-diversity between areas. Variation partitioning on abundance, biomass and functional diversity showed scale-dependence of processes structuring dung beetle metacommunities. We identified two major groups of responses among 17 functional groups. In general, environmental filters were important at both local and regional scales. Spatial factors were important at the intermediate scale. Our study supports the notion of scale-dependence of environmental, spatial and temporal processes in the distribution and functional organization of Scarabaeinae beetles. We conclude that functional diversity may be used as a complementary approach to traditional measures, and that community deconstruction allows sufficient disentangling of responses of different trait-based groups.
群落结构受与环境、空间和时间过程相关的机制驱动，这些机制已通过集合群落框架得到成功解决。可以使用几种不同的方法来确定塑造群落结构的过程的相对重要性。越来越常用的两种方法是功能多样性和群落解构。功能多样性通过纳入不同群落属性的各种指数来衡量。群落解构是一种通过将具有相似特征的物种分组来剖析物种对生态过程响应的方法。我们使用这两种方法来确定它们相对于传统测量方法（例如物种组成、丰度、生物量）是否有所改进，以识别巴西南部大西洋森林中一个破碎的大陆 - 岛屿景观中蜣螂（金龟亚科）群落结构的主要驱动过程。我们在四个大森林区域中的每个区域选取了五个地点，两个在大陆，两个在岛屿。采样在2012年和2013年进行。我们从分布在20个采样地点的100个采样点收集了丰度和生物量数据。我们在三个空间尺度上研究了环境、空间和时间对蜣螂群落的影响，即地点之间、区域之间以及大陆 - 岛屿之间。基于物种丰度的γ多样性主要归因于β多样性，这是区域间平均α多样性和β多样性增加的结果。对丰度、生物量和功能多样性的变异分解表明，构建蜣螂集合群落的过程具有尺度依赖性。我们在17个功能组中识别出了两大类响应。总体而言，环境过滤在局部和区域尺度上都很重要。空间因素在中间尺度上很重要。我们的研究支持了在金龟亚科甲虫的分布和功能组织中环境、空间和时间过程具有尺度依赖性的观点。我们得出结论，功能多样性可以用作传统测量方法的补充方法，并且群落解构能够充分剖析不同基于特征的组的响应。
