Biology subjects

Gallinat, A. S.

Publications and source records attributed to Gallinat, A. S..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

The abiotic and biotic environment together predict plant, mammal, and bird diversity and turnover across the United States

The distribution of taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional biodiversity results from a combination of abiotic and biotic drivers which are scale dependent. Parsing the relative influence of these drivers is critical to understanding the processes underlying species assembly and generating predictions of biodiversity across taxonomic groups and for novel sites. However, doing so requires data that capture a spatial extent large enough to reflect broad-scale dynamics such as speciation and biogeography, and a spatial grain fine enough to detect local-scale dynamics like environmental filtering and biotic interactions. We used species inventories of vascular plants, birds, and mammals collected by the U.S. National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) at 38 terrestrial field sites, to explore the processes underlying taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity and turnover. We found that, for both species richness (alpha-diversity) and turnover (beta-diversity), taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity are weak proxies for one-another, and thus may capture different species assembly processes. All diversity metrics were best predicted by a combination of abiotic and biotic variables. Taxonomic and phylogenetic richness tended to be higher at warmer, wetter sites, reflecting the role energy inputs play in driving broad-scale diversity. However, plant diversity was negatively correlated with bird phylogenetic and mammal functional diversity, implying trait conservation in plant communities may limit niche availability for consumer species. Equally, turnover in bird and mammal species across sites were associated with plant turnover. That the biodiversity of one taxon is predictive of another across these North American sites, even when controlling for environment, supports a role for the cross-clade biotic environment in driving species assembly.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

Strong trait correlation and phylogenetic signal in North American ground beetle (Carabidae) morphology

Functional traits mediate species responses to and roles within their environment, and are constrained by evolutionary history. While we have a strong understanding of trait evolution for macro-taxa such as birds and mammals, our understanding of invertebrates is comparatively limited. Here we address this gap in North American beetles with a sample of ground beetles (Carabidae), leveraging a large-scale collection and digitization effort by the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). For 154 ground beetle species, we measured seven morphological traits, which we placed into a recently-developed effect-response framework that characterizes traits by how they predict species effects on their ecosystems or responses to environmental stressors. We then used cytochrome oxidase one sequences from the same specimens to generate a phylogeny and tested evolutionary tempo and mode of the traits. We found strong phylogenetic signal in, and correlations among, morphological ground beetle traits. These results indicate that, for these species, beetle body shape trait evolution is constrained, and phylogenetic inertia is a stronger driver of beetle traits than (recent) environmental responses. Strong correlations among effect and response traits suggest that future environmental drivers are likely to affect both ecological composition and functioning in these beetles.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2020

A novel framework for modeling the evolution of cross-scale ecological assembly

Community assembly can be driven by species responses to environmental gradients, and interactions within (e.g., competition) and across (e.g., herbivory) clades. These ecological dynamics are mediated by species traits, which are in turn shaped by past evolution. As such, identifying the drivers of species assembly is made difficult by the differing temporal and spatial scales of ecological and evolutionary dynamics. Two recent advances have emerged to address the cross-scale challenge of modeling species assembly: phylogenetic generalized linear mixed modeling (PGLMM) and earth observation networks (EONs). PGLMM integrates through time by modeling the evolution of trait-based community assembly, while EONs synthesize across space by placing standardized site-level species occurrence data within their regional context. Here we describe a framework for combining these tools to investigate the drivers of species assembly, and so address three outstanding questions: (1) Does evolution adapt or constrain regional-scale environmental responses? (2) Do evolved responses to past competition minimize or enhance present-day competition? (3) Are species cross-clade associations evolutionarily constrained? We provide a conceptual overview of how PGLMM and EONs can be synthesized to answer these questions, and provide exemplar Bayesian PGLMM code. Finally, we describe the capacity of these tools to aid in conservation and natural resource management, including predicting future colonization by rare and invasive species, vulnerable mutualisms, and pest and pathogen outbreaks.

evolutionary biology↗