Chen Ting-Wen, Sandmann Philipp, Schaefer Ina, Scheu Stefan
J. F. Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany.
Centre of Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany.
Ecol Evol. 2017 Oct 16;7(22):9624-9638. doi: 10.1002/ece3.3472. eCollection 2017 Nov.
Functional traits determine the occurrence of species along environmental gradients and their coexistence with other species. Understanding how traits evolved among coexisting species helps to infer community assembly processes. We propose fatty acid composition in consumer tissue as a functional trait related to both food resources and physiological functions of species. We measured phylogenetic signal in fatty acid profiles of 13 field-sampled Collembola (springtail) species and then combined the data with published fatty acid profiles of another 24 species. Collembola fatty acid profiles generally showed phylogenetic signal, with related species resembling each other. Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, related to physiological functions, demonstrated phylogenetic signal. In contrast, most food resource biomarker fatty acids and the ratios between bacterial, fungal, and plant biomarker fatty acids exhibited no phylogenetic signal. Presumably, fatty acids related to physiological functions have been constrained during Collembola evolutionary history: Species with close phylogenetic affinity experienced similar environments during divergence, while niche partitioning in food resources among closely related species favored species coexistence. Measuring phylogenetic signal in ecologically relevant traits of coexisting species provides an evolutionary perspective to contemporary assembly processes of ecological communities. Integrating phylogenetic comparative methods with community phylogenetic and trait-based approaches may compensate for the limitations of each method when used alone and improve understanding of processes driving and maintaining assembly patterns.
功能性状决定了物种在环境梯度中的出现情况以及它们与其他物种的共存。了解共存物种之间性状如何演化有助于推断群落组装过程。我们提出消费者组织中的脂肪酸组成作为一种与物种的食物资源和生理功能相关的功能性状。我们测量了13种野外采集的弹尾目（跳虫）物种脂肪酸谱中的系统发育信号，然后将这些数据与另外24个物种已发表的脂肪酸谱相结合。弹尾目脂肪酸谱总体上显示出系统发育信号，亲缘关系相近的物种彼此相似。与生理功能相关的长链多不饱和脂肪酸表现出系统发育信号。相比之下，大多数食物资源生物标志物脂肪酸以及细菌、真菌和植物生物标志物脂肪酸之间的比率没有表现出系统发育信号。据推测，与生理功能相关的脂肪酸在弹尾目的进化历史中受到了限制：亲缘关系相近的物种在分化过程中经历了相似的环境，而亲缘关系相近的物种在食物资源上的生态位划分有利于物种共存。测量共存物种生态相关性状中的系统发育信号为生态群落的当代组装过程提供了一个进化视角。将系统发育比较方法与群落系统发育和基于性状的方法相结合，可能会弥补每种方法单独使用时的局限性，并增进对驱动和维持组装模式过程的理解。
