Ant taxonomic and functional beta-diversity

The decomposition of beta-diversity (β-diversity) into its replacement (βrepl) and richness (βrich) components in combination with a taxonomic and functional approach, may help to identify processes driving community composition along environmental gradients.

We aimed to understand which abiotic and spatial variables influence ant β-diversity and identify which processes may drive ant β-diversity patterns in Mediterranean drylands by measuring the percentage of variation in ant taxonomic and functional β-diversity explained by local environmental, regional climatic and spatial variables.

We found that taxonomic and functional replacement (βrepl) primarily drove patterns in overall β-diversity (βtot). Variation partitioning analysis showed that respectively 16.8 %, 12.9 % and 21.6 % of taxonomic βtot, βrepl and βrich variation were mainly explained by local environmental variables. Local environmental variables were also the main determinants of functional β-diversity, explaining 2...