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Tropical land-use change alters trait-based community assembly rules for dung beetles and birds
- Source :
- Oecologia
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Tropical rainforest disturbance and conversion are critical drivers of biodiversity loss. A key knowledge gap is understanding the impacts of habitat modification on mechanisms of community assembly, which are predicted to respond differently between taxa and across spatial scales. We use a null model approach to detect trait assembly of species at local- and landscape-scales, and then subdivide communities with different habitat associations and foraging guilds to investigate whether the detection of assembly mechanisms varies between groups. We focus on two indicator taxa, dung beetles and birds, across a disturbance gradient of primary rainforest, selectively logged rainforest, and oil palm plantations in Borneo, Southeast Asia. Random community assembly was predominant for dung beetles across habitats, whereas trait convergence, indicative of environmental filtering, occurred across the disturbance gradient for birds. Assembly patterns at the two spatial scales were similar. Subdividing for habitat association and foraging guild revealed patterns hidden when focusing on the overall community. Dung beetle forest specialists and habitat generalists showed opposing assembly mechanisms in primary forest, community assembly of habitat generalists for both taxa differed with disturbance intensity, and insectivorous birds strongly influenced overall community assembly relative to other guilds. Our study reveals the sensitivity of community assembly mechanisms to anthropogenic disturbance via a shift in the relative contribution of stochastic and deterministic processes. This highlights the need for greater understanding of how habitat modification alters species interactions and the importance of incorporating species’ traits within assessments. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00442-020-04829-z.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Assembly rules
Avian
Foraging
Scarabaeidae
Rainforest
Forests
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Birds
Borneo
Species co-occurrence
Animals
Ecosystem
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Dung beetle
geography
geography.geographical_feature_category
biology
Ecology
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
Community Ecology–Original Research
Biodiversity
biology.organism_classification
Old-growth forest
Coleoptera
Guild
Functional traits
Tropical rainforest
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14321939 and 00298549
- Volume :
- 195
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Oecologia
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....2ab6de7883cf4ada313ffdce97ed9883