The world's richest tadpole communities show functional redundancy and low functional diversity: ecological data on Madagascar's stream-dwelling amphibian larvae.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Functional diversity illustrates the range of ecological functions in a community. It allows revealing the appearance of functional redundancy in communities and processes of community assembly. Functional redundancy illustrates the overlap in ecological functions of community members which may be an indicator of community resilience. We evaluated patterns of species richness, functional diversity and functional redundancy on tadpole communities in rainforest streams in Madagascar. This habitat harbours the world's most species-rich stream tadpole communities which are due to their occurrence in primary habitat of particular interest for functional diversity studies.

Results

Species richness of tadpole communities is largely determined by characteristics of the la

SUBMITTER: Strauss A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2877654 | biostudies-literature | 2010 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature