High-resolution 3D forest structure explains ecomorphological trait variation in assemblages of saproxylic beetles
Year of publication
2023
Authors
Drag, Lukas; Burner, Ryan C.; Stephan, Jorg G.; Birkemoe, Tone; Doerfler, Inken; Gossner, Martin M.; Magdon, Paul; Ovaskainen, Otso; Potterf, Maria; Schall, Peter; Snäll, Tord; Sverdrup-Thygeson, Anne; Weisser, Wolfgang; Mueller, Joerg
Abstract
Climate, topography and the 3D structure of forests are major drivers affecting local species communities. However, little is known about how the specific functional traits of saproxylic (wood-living) beetles, involved in the recycling of wood, might be affected by those environmental characteristics. Here we combine ecological and morphological traits available for saproxylic beetles and airborne laser scanning (ALS) data in Bayesian trait-based joint species distribution models to study how traits drive the distributions of more than 230 species in temperate forests of Europe. We found that elevation (as a proxy for temperature and precipitation) and the proportion of conifers played important roles in species occurrences while variables related to habitat heterogeneity and forest complexity were less relevant. Further, we showed that local communities were shaped by environmental variation primarily through their ecological traits whereas morphological traits were involved only marginally. As predicted, ecological traits influenced species’ responses to forest structure, and to other environmental variation, with canopy niche, wood decay niche, and host preference as the most important ecological traits. Conversely, no links between morphological traits and environmental characteristics were observed. Both models, however, revealed strong phylogenetic signal in species’ response to environmental characteristics. These findings imply that alterations of climate and tree species composition have the potential to alter saproxylic beetle communities in temperate forests. Additionally, ecological traits help explain species’ responses to environmental characteristics and thus should prove useful in predicting their responses to future change. It remains challenging, however, to link simple morphological traits to species’ complex ecological niches.
Show moreOrganizations and authors
Publication type
Publication format
Article
Parent publication type
Journal
Article type
Original article
Audience
ScientificPeer-reviewed
Peer-ReviewedMINEDU's publication type classification code
A1 Journal article (refereed), original researchPublication channel information
Journal
Parent publication name
Publisher
Volume
37
Issue
1
Pages
150-161
ISSN
Publication forum
Publication forum level
3
Open access
Open access in the publisher’s service
Yes
Open access of publication channel
Partially open publication channel
Self-archived
Yes
Other information
Fields of science
Ecology, evolutionary biology
Keywords
[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]
Publication country
United Kingdom
Internationality of the publisher
International
Language
English
International co-publication
Yes
Co-publication with a company
No
DOI
10.1111/1365-2435.14188
The publication is included in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s Publication data collection
Yes