Data from: The role of species traits in mediating functional recovery during matrix restoration

Reversing anthropogenic impacts on habitat structure is frequently successful through restoration, but the mechanisms linking habitat change, community reassembly and recovery of ecosystem functioning remain unknown. We test for the influence of edge effects and matrix habitat restoration on the reassembly of dung beetle communities and consequent recovery of dung removal rates across tropical forest edges. Using path modelling, we disentangle the relative importance of community-weighted trait means and functional trait dispersion from total biomass effects on rates of dung removal. Community trait composition and biomass of dung beetle communities responded divergently to edge effects and matrix habitat restoration, yielding opposing effects on dung removal. However, functional dispersion—used in this study as a measure of niche complementarity—did not explain a significant amount of variation in dung removal rates across habitat edges. Instead, we demonstrate that the path to functional recovery of these altered ecosystems depends on the trait-mean composition of reassembling communities, over and above purely biomass-dependent processes that would be expected under neutral theory. These results suggest that any ability to manage functional recovery of ecosystems during habitat restoration will demand knowledge of species' roles in ecosystem processes.

通过生态修复逆转人为活动对栖息地结构造成的干扰往往可取得成功，但连接栖息地变化、群落重建与生态系统功能恢复的内在机制仍未明确。本研究聚焦热带森林边缘区域，探究边缘效应（edge effects）与基质栖息地（matrix habitat）修复对蜣螂（dung beetle）群落重建的影响，及其对粪便移除速率恢复的后续作用。研究采用路径建模（path modelling）方法，厘清群落加权性状平均值（community-weighted trait means）、功能性状离散度（functional trait dispersion）与总生物量分别对粪便移除速率的相对贡献程度。结果显示，蜣螂群落的性状组成与生物量对边缘效应及基质栖息地修复的响应存在显著分化，进而对粪便移除速率产生相反的调控效应。然而，本研究中用于表征生态位互补性（niche complementarity）的功能性状离散度，并未解释栖息地边缘间粪便移除速率的显著变异。与之相反，本研究证实：此类受干扰生态系统的功能恢复路径，取决于重建群落的性状平均组成，而非中性理论（neutral theory）下预期的、仅依赖生物量的调控过程。本研究结果表明，若要在栖息地修复过程中实现生态系统功能恢复的有效管控，必须掌握物种在生态系统过程中的功能角色。