Estimation of functional diversity and species traits from ecological monitoring data.

ABSTRACT: The twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss define a strong need for functional diversity monitoring. While the availability of high-quality ecological monitoring data is increasing, the quantification of functional diversity so far requires the identification of species traits, for which data are harder to obtain. However, the traits that are relevant for the ecological function of a species also shape its performance in the environment and hence, should be reflected indirectly in its spatiotemporal distribution. Thus, it may be possible to reconstruct these traits from a sufficiently extensive monitoring dataset. Here, we use diffusion maps, a deterministic and de facto parameter-free analysis method, to reconstruct a proxy representation of the species' traits directly from

SUBMITTER: Ryabov A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9618138 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature