Abstract
Biodiversity is a multifaceted concept, yet most biodiversity studies have taken a taxonomic approach, implying that all species are equally important. However, species do not contribute equally to ecosystem processes and differ markedly in their responses to changing environments. This recognition has led to the exploration of other components of biodiversity, notably the diversity of ecologically important traits. Recent studies taking into account both taxonomic and trait diversity have revealed that the two biodiversity components may exhibit pronounced temporal and spatial differences. These apparent incongruences indicate that the two components may respond differently to environmental drivers and that changes in one component might not affect the other. Such incongruences may provide insight into the structuring of communities through community assembly processes, and the resilience of ecosystems to change. Here we examine temporal and spatial patterns and drivers of multiple marine biodiversity indicators using the North Sea fish community as a case study. Based on long-term spatially resolved survey data on fish species occurrences and biomasses from 1983 to 2014 and an extensive trait dataset we: (i) investigate temporal and spatial incongruences between taxonomy and trait-based indicators of both richness and evenness; (ii) examine the underlying environmental drivers and, (iii) interpret the results in the context of assembly rules acting on community composition. Our study shows that taxonomy and trait-based biodiversity indicators differ in time and space and that these differences are correlated to natural and anthropogenic drivers, notably temperature, depth and substrate richness. Our findings show that trait-based biodiversity indicators add information regarding community composition and ecosystem structure compared to and in conjunction with taxonomy-based indicators. These results emphasize the importance of examining and monitoring multiple indicators of biodiversity in ecological studies as well as for conservation and ecosystem-based management purposes.
Highlights
Understanding patterns of biodiversity and their underlying drivers has challenged scientists for centuries [1,2], and it remains a fundamental and strongly debated field in ecology [3]
trait richness (TRic) was significantly positively correlated to species richness (SRic) (GAM: F = 92.28, e.d.f. = 1, R2 = 0.75, p < 0.05), a significant decrease in the ratio between TRic and SRic was observed during the study period (GAM: F = 87.3, e.d.f. = 1.85 R2 = 0.75, p < 0.05), indicating that TRic did not increase at the same rate as SRic (S2 Fig)
Only 26% of the ICES rectangles showed a significant increase in TRic, indicating a more localized extent of increase compared to SRic (Fig 2E)
Summary
Understanding patterns of biodiversity and their underlying drivers has challenged scientists for centuries [1,2], and it remains a fundamental and strongly debated field in ecology [3]. It is well known that species differ in their contribution to ecosystem processes [7], and that they exhibit marked differences in their responses to changing environments This recognition has led to the exploration of components of biodiversity other than taxonomic diversity in ecosystems and species assemblages. Terrestrial and marine studies taking into account multiple components of biodiversity using both taxonomic and trait information have revealed that the two components of biodiversity may exhibit temporal and spatial differences [16,17,18,19] These apparent discrepancies indicate that the two components of biodiversity may respond differently to environmental drivers and perturbations [20,21]
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