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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]

Abstract: Restoring resilient ecosystems in an era of rapid environmental change requires a flexible framework for selecting assemblages of species based on functional traits. However, current trait‐based models have been limited to algorithms that select species assemblages that only converge on specified average trait values, and could not accommodate the common desire among restoration ecologists to generate functionally diverse assemblages. We have solved this problem by applying a nonlinear optimization algorithm to solve for the species relative abundances that maximize Rao's quadratic entropy (Q) subject to other linear constraints. Rao's Q is a closed‐form algebraic expression of functional diversity that is maximized when the most abundant species are functionally dissimilar. Previous models have maximized species evenness subject to the linear constraints by maximizing the entropy function (H’). Maximizing Q alone produces an undesirable species abundance distribution because species that exhibit extreme trait values have the highest abundances. We demonstrate that the maximization of an objective function that additively combines Q and H’ produces a more even relative abundance distribution across the trait dimension. Some ecological restoration projects aim to restore communities that converge on one set of traits while diverging across another. The selectSpecies r function can derive assemblages for any size species pool that maximizes the diversity of any set of traits, while simultaneously converging on average values of any other set of traits. We demonstrate how the function works through examples using uniformly spaced trait distributions and data with a known structure. We also demonstrate the utility of the function using real trait data collected on dozens of species from three separate ecosystems: serpentine grasslands, ponderosa pine forests, and subtropical rainforests. The quantitative selection of species based on their functional traits for ecological restoration and experimentation must be both rigorous and accessible to practitioners. The selectSpecies function provides ecologists with an easy‐to‐use open‐source solution to objectively derive species assemblages based on their functional traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assembly of grassland communities has long been scrutinized through the lens of functional diversity. Studies generally point to an overwhelming influence of climate on observed patterns of functional diversity, despite experimental evidence demonstrating the importance of biotic interactions. We postulate that this is because most observational studies neglect both scale dependencies of assembly processes and phenotypic variation between individuals. Here, we test for changes in the importance of abiotic filtering and biotic interactions along a stress gradient by explicitly accounting for different scales. In addition to quantifying intraspecific trait variability (ITV), we also vary the two components of spatial scale, including grain (i.e. community size) and extent (i.e. the geographical area that defines the species pool)., We sampled 20 grassland communities in ten sites distributed along a 975-m elevation gradient. At each site, we measured seven functional traits for a total of 2020 individuals at different spatial grains. We related community functional diversity metrics to the main environmental gradient of our study area, growing season length (GSL), and assessed the dependence of these relationships on spatial grain, spatial extent and ITV., At large spatial grain and extent, the imprint of environmental filtering on functional diversity became more important with increasing stress (i.e. functional diversity decreased with shorter GSL). At small spatial grain and extent, we found a convex relationship between functional diversity and GSL congruent with the hypothesis that competition is dominant at low-stress levels while facilitative interactions are dominant at high-stress levels (i.e. high functional diversity at both extremes of the stress gradient). Importantly, the effect of intraspecific variability on assembly rules was noticeable only at small spatial grain and extent., Synthesis. Our study reveals how the combination of abiotic stress and biotic interactions shapes the functional diversity of alpine grasslands at different spatial scales, and highlights the importance of phenotype variation between individuals for community assembly processes at fine spatial scale. Our results suggest that studies analysing trait-based assembly rules but ignoring ITV and focusing on a single spatial scale are likely to miss essential features of community diversity patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have shown that accounting for intraspecific trait variation ( ITV) may better address major questions in community ecology. However, a general picture of the relative extent of ITV compared to interspecific trait variation in plant communities is still missing. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of the relative extent of ITV within and among plant communities worldwide, using a data set encompassing 629 communities (plots) and 36 functional traits. Overall, ITV accounted for 25% of the total trait variation within communities and 32% of the total trait variation among communities on average. The relative extent of ITV tended to be greater for whole-plant (e.g. plant height) vs. organ-level traits and for leaf chemical (e.g. leaf N and P concentration) vs. leaf morphological (e.g. leaf area and thickness) traits. The relative amount of ITV decreased with increasing species richness and spatial extent, but did not vary with plant growth form or climate. These results highlight global patterns in the relative importance of ITV in plant communities, providing practical guidelines for when researchers should include ITV in trait-based community and ecosystem studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]