Dispersal–niche continuum index: a new quantitative metric for assessing the relative importance of dispersal versus niche processes in community assembly
2021
Vilmi, Annika | Gibert Bret, Corentin | Escarguel, Gilles | Happonen, Konsta | Heino, Jani | Jamoneau, Aurélien | Passy, Sophia, I | Picazo, Félix | Soininen, Janne | Tison-Rosebery, Juliette | Wang, Jianjun | Chinese Academy of Sciences [Nanjing Branch] | Laboratoire de paléontologie, évolution, paléoécosystèmes, paléoprimatologie [UMR 7262] (Palevoprim [Poitiers]) ; Université de Poitiers = University of Poitiers (UP)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | LEHNA - Laboratoire d'Ecologie des Hydrosystèmes Naturels et Anthropisés [équipe P3E] (LEHNA P3E) ; Laboratoire d'Ecologie des Hydrosystèmes Naturels et Anthropisés (LEHNA) ; Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL) ; Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État (ENTPE)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL) ; Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État (ENTPE)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | Helsingin yliopisto = Helsingfors universitet = University of Helsinki | Natural Environment Centre [Oulu] ; Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) | Ecosystèmes aquatiques et changements globaux (UR EABX) ; Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE) | University of Texas at Arlington [Arlington] | National Natural Science Foundation of China (91851117), the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP) Program (2019QZKK0503), the Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences (QYZDB-SSW-DQC043), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41871048, 41571058), the Chinese Academy of Sciences President’s International Fellowship Initiative (2018PS0007) ), and the project FRESHABIT LIFE IP (LIFE14/IPE/FI/023)
International audience
Show more [+] Less [-]English. Patterns in community composition are scale-dependent and generally difficult to distinguish. Therefore, quantifying the main assembly processes in various systems and across different datasets has remained challenging. Building on the PER-SIMPER method, we propose a new metric, the dispersal-niche continuum index (DNCI), which estimates whether dispersal or niche processes dominate community assembly and facilitates the comparisons of processes among datasets. The DNCI was tested for robustness using simulations and applied to observational datasets comprising organismal groups with different trophic level and dispersal potential. Based on the robustness tests, the DNCI discriminated the respective contribution of niche and dispersal processes in pairwise comparisons of site groups with less than 40% and 30% differences in their taxa and site numbers, respectively. In the observational datasets, the DNCI suggested that dispersal rather than niche assembly was the dominant assembly process which, however, varied in intensity among organismal groups and study contexts, including spatial scale and ecosystem types. The proposed DNCI measures the relative strength of community assembly processes in a way that is simple, easily quantifiable and comparable across datasets. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the DNCI and provide perspectives for future research.
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