Phylogenetic structure of specialization: A new approach that integrates partner availability and phylogenetic diversity to quantify biotic specialization in ecological networks.

ABSTRACT: Biotic specialization holds information about the assembly, evolution, and stability of biological communities. Partner availabilities can play an important role in enabling species interactions, where uneven partner availabilities can bias estimates of biotic specialization when using phylogenetic diversity indices. It is therefore important to account for partner availability when characterizing biotic specialization using phylogenies. We developed an index, phylogenetic structure of specialization (PSS), that avoids bias from uneven partner availabilities by uncoupling the null models for interaction frequency and phylogenetic distance. We incorporate the deviation between observed and random interaction frequencies as weights into the calculation of partner phylogenetic α-diversity. To

SUBMITTER: Pardo-De la Hoz CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8888259 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature