Community trait overdispersion due to trophic interactions: concerns for assembly process inference.

ABSTRACT: The expected link between competitive exclusion and community trait overdispersion has been used to infer competition in local communities, and trait clustering has been interpreted as habitat filtering. Such community assembly process inference has received criticism for ignoring trophic interactions, as competition and trophic interactions might create similar trait patterns. While other theoretical studies have generally demonstrated the importance of predation for coexistence, ours provides the first quantitative demonstration of such effects on assembly process inference, using a trait-based ecological model to simulate the assembly of a competitive primary consumer community with and without the influence of trophic interactions. We quantified and contrasted trait dispersion/clusteri

SUBMITTER: Pontarp M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5069517 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature