β diversity among ant communities on fragmented habitat islands: the roles of species trait, phylogeny and abundance

Habitat loss and fragmentation reduce biodiversity and alter species composition in local communities. β diversity describes the variation in species composition between or among communities in fragmented landscapes and has two components: species turnover and nestedness. In this study, we assessed β diversity of ant assemblages on 24 island fragments in the Thousand Island Lake, China. We constructed a species-level phylogenetic tree and measured five morphological traits of all ant species captured. We then assessed taxonomic (both incidence-based and abundance-weighted), functional, and phylogenetic β diversity and partitioned β diversity into turnover and nestedness (as well as the contributions of particular species and particular islands). Finally, we examined the relationships between β diversity and a suite of geographical variables (i.e., difference in island area, difference in isolation and inter-island distance) using Mantel tests. We found taxonomic and phylogenetic turnove...