Multidecadal changes in functional diversity lag behind the recovery of taxonomic diversity

1. While there has been increasing interest in how taxonomic diversity is changing over time, less is known about how long-term taxonomic changes may affect ecosystem functioning and resilience. Exploring long-term patterns of functional diversity can provide key insights into the capacity of a community to carry out ecological processes and the redundancy of species’ roles.

2. We focus on a protected freshwater system located in a national park in southeast Germany. We use a high-resolution benthic macroinvertebrate dataset spanning 32 years (1983 – 2014) and test if changes in functional diversity are reflected in taxonomic diversity using a multidimensional trait-based approach and regression analyses. Specifically, we asked: i) How has functional diversity changed over time? ii) How functionally distinct are the community’s taxa? iii) Are changes in functional diversity concurrent with taxonomic diversity? iv) What is the extent of community functional redundancy?

3. Resultant...