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Our understanding of how biotic interactions influence animal community assembly is largely restricted to local systems due to the difficulty of obtaining ecologically meaningful assemblage data across large spatial extents. Here, we used thousands of spatio‐phenologically high‐resolution assemblages across three distinct European regions together with a functional diversity approach to understand community assembly of dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata), an insect group characterized by a pronounced competitive reproductive biology. We found that adult dragonfly, but not damselfly, assemblages were consistently composed of species morphologically more different than expected by chance based on the traits that enhance their interspecific reproductive encounters. These results provide consistent evidence for the role of competition in the assembly of animal communities, which we interpret is most likely caused by the territorial reproductive biology of dragonflies. Support for competition varied both spatially and seasonally following theoretical expectations, as it was strongest in locations and seasonal moments with low thermal stress (i.e. warm conditions) and high niche packing. Our study illustrates how spatio‐temporal diversity patterns arise from variation in assembly processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil microbial communities play a key role in ecosystem functioning but still little is known about the processes that determine their turnover (β‐diversity) along ecological gradients. Here, we characterize soil microbial β‐diversity at two spatial scales and at multiple phylogenetic grains to ask how archaeal, bacterial and fungal communities are shaped by abiotic processes and biotic interactions with plants. We characterized microbial and plant communities using DNA metabarcoding of soil samples distributed across and within eighteen plots along an elevation gradient in the French Alps. The recovered taxa were placed onto phylogenies to estimate microbial and plant β‐diversity at different phylogenetic grains (i.e. resolution). We then modeled microbial β‐diversities with respect to plant β‐diversities and environmental dissimilarities across plots (landscape scale) and with respect to plant β‐diversities and spatial distances within plots (plot scale). At the landscape scale, fungal and archaeal β‐diversities were mostly related to plant β‐diversity, while bacterial β‐diversities were mostly related to environmental dissimilarities. At the plot scale, we detected a modest covariation of bacterial and fungal β‐diversities with plant β‐diversity; as well as a distance–decay relationship that suggested the influence of ecological drift on microbial communities. In addition, the covariation between fungal and plant β‐diversity at the plot scale was highest at fine or intermediate phylogenetic grains hinting that biotic interactions between those clades depends on early‐evolved traits. Altogether, we show how multiple ecological processes determine soil microbial community assembly at different spatial scales and how the strength of these processes change among microbial clades. In addition, we emphasized the imprint of microbial and plant evolutionary history on today's microbial community structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate and land cover changes are important drivers of the plant species distributions and diversity patterns in mountainous regions. Although the need for a multifaceted view of diversity based on taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic dimensions is now commonly recognized, there are no complete risk assessments concerning their expected changes. In this paper, we used a range of species distribution models in an ensemble-forecasting framework together with regional climate and land cover projections by 2080 to analyze the potential threat for more than 2500 plant species at high resolution (2.5 × 2.5 km) in the French Alps. We also decomposed taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity facets into α and β components and analyzed their expected changes by 2080. Overall, plant species threats from climate and land cover changes in the French Alps were expected to vary depending on the species' preferred altitudinal vegetation zone, rarity, and conservation status. Indeed, rare species and species of conservation concern were the ones projected to experience less severe change, and also the ones being the most efficiently preserved by the current network of protected areas. Conversely, the three facets of plant diversity were also projected to experience drastic spatial re-shuffling by 2080. In general, the mean α-diversity of the three facets was projected to increase to the detriment of regional β-diversity, although the latter was projected to remain high at the montane-alpine transition zones. Our results show that, due to a high-altitude distribution, the current protection network is efficient for rare species, and species predicted to migrate upward. Although our modeling framework may not capture all possible mechanisms of species range shifts, our work illustrates that a comprehensive risk assessment on an entire floristic region combined with functional and phylogenetic information can help delimitate future scenarios of biodiversity and better design its protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]