The interaction of phylogeny and community structure: linking the community composition and trait evolution of clades

Aim. Community phylogenetic studies use information about species’ evolutionary relationships to understand the ecological processes of community assembly. A central premise of the field is that species’ evolution maps onto ecological patterns, and phylogeny reveals something more than species’ traits alone about ecological mechanisms structuring communities such as environmental filtering, competition, and facilitation. We argue, therefore, that there is a need to better understand and model the interaction of phylogeny with species’ traits and community composition. Innovation. We outline a new approach that identifies clades that are eco-phylogenetically clustered or overdispersed, and then assesses whether those clades have different rates of trait evolution. Eco-phylogenetic theory would predict that the traits of clustered or overdispersed clades might have evolved differently, either in terms of tempo (fast or slow) or mode (e.g., under constraint or neutrally). We suggest that m...