The utility of biodiversity measures that incorporate pairwise species functional differences is becoming increasingly recognized. Functional diversity is regarded as the key for linking community composition to ecosystem processes like productivity, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, or stability when subject to perturbations. Therefore, several indices have been proposed to measure the functional diversity of a given species assemblage. The principle behind these measures is that a species assemblage with high functional overlap among species has a lower functional diversity than an assemblage with low functional overlap. On the other hand, the variability in the species functional characters among different species assemblages (i.e., functional beta diversity) has received much less attention. The aim of this paper is thus to discuss a general framework for calculating functional beta diversity from plot-to-plot functional dissimilarity matrices. To illustrate our proposal we use data from two beech forest stands with different management histories in central Italy. The results of our analysis show that, though the two stands are significantly different from one another in terms of their species functional traits, the difference in their functional beta diversity values is only marginally significant. These results are related to the characteristic scale at which ecological variations occur in the two stands.

Beta diversity for functional ecology / Ricotta, Carlo; Burrascano, Sabina. - In: PRESLIA. - ISSN 0032-7786. - STAMPA. - 80:(2008), pp. 61-72.

Beta diversity for functional ecology

RICOTTA, Carlo;BURRASCANO, SABINA
2008

Abstract

The utility of biodiversity measures that incorporate pairwise species functional differences is becoming increasingly recognized. Functional diversity is regarded as the key for linking community composition to ecosystem processes like productivity, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, or stability when subject to perturbations. Therefore, several indices have been proposed to measure the functional diversity of a given species assemblage. The principle behind these measures is that a species assemblage with high functional overlap among species has a lower functional diversity than an assemblage with low functional overlap. On the other hand, the variability in the species functional characters among different species assemblages (i.e., functional beta diversity) has received much less attention. The aim of this paper is thus to discuss a general framework for calculating functional beta diversity from plot-to-plot functional dissimilarity matrices. To illustrate our proposal we use data from two beech forest stands with different management histories in central Italy. The results of our analysis show that, though the two stands are significantly different from one another in terms of their species functional traits, the difference in their functional beta diversity values is only marginally significant. These results are related to the characteristic scale at which ecological variations occur in the two stands.
2008
nested sampling design; euclidean distance; functional dissimilaxity; randomization test; multivariate anova; functional dissimilarity
01 Pubblicazione su rivista::01a Articolo in rivista
Beta diversity for functional ecology / Ricotta, Carlo; Burrascano, Sabina. - In: PRESLIA. - ISSN 0032-7786. - STAMPA. - 80:(2008), pp. 61-72.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11573/361577
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