Traits matter: When rarity means more than abundance to functional diversity
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biodiversity, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Marine Biology
- Keywords
- abundance, rarity, intertidal, taxonomic distinctness, functional distinctness, functional diversity, taxonomic diversity
- Copyright
- © 2018 Trott
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Traits matter: When rarity means more than abundance to functional diversity. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26840v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26840v1
Abstract
Rare species can significantly contribute to ecosystem stability and resiliency. Furthermore, wider taxonomic trees can support a wider range of functional diversity. These ideas with the notion that functional diversity leads to ecosystem resiliency suggest rare species can disproportionately increase taxonomic and functional diversity. To test this hypothesis, functional distinctness was used to estimate functional diversity, and average taxonomic distinctness to evaluate taxonomic diversity for rocky intertidal species assemblages sampled by three surveys separated by years examining a total 41 locations spanning the Gulf of Maine. Fifteen life-history and ecological traits were assigned to the 95 species observed using a total of 90 options. Species were ranked either rare or abundant using incidence. Influence of rarity on functional and taxonomic distinctness was appraised by comparing intact assemblages to ones where rare species (observed once per location) were removed to imitate rare species loss. For intact assemblages, functional and taxonomic distinctness correlated. However, rare species removal significantly decreased functional diversity for some assemblages while taxonomic diversity was less affected. Removal of abundant species produced no significant effects. Results demonstrate rare species can increase functional diversity without necessarily being rare taxonomically. Abundant species exert their effects through their numbers; mere presence makes no difference.
Author Comment
This is an abstract which has been accepted for the WCMB.