Underdispersion and overdispersion of traits in terrestrial snail communities on islands.

ABSTRACT: Understanding and disentangling different processes underlying the assembly and diversity of communities remains a key challenge in ecology. Species can assemble into communities either randomly or due to deterministic processes. Deterministic assembly leads to species being more similar (underdispersed) or more different (overdispersed) in certain traits than would be expected by chance. However, the relative importance of those processes is not well understood for many organisms, including terrestrial invertebrates. Based on knowledge of a broad range of species traits, we tested for the presence of trait underdispersion (indicating dispersal or environmental filtering) and trait overdispersion (indicating niche partitioning) and their relative importance in explaining land snail communi

SUBMITTER: Astor T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4201424 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature