Moral, Rafael A. and Vishwakarma, Rishabh and Connolly, John and Byrne, Laura and Hurley, Catherine and Finn, John A. and Brophy, Caroline (2023) Going beyond richness: Modelling the BEF relationship using species identity, evenness, richness and species interactions via the DImodels R package. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 14 (9). pp. 2250-2258. ISSN 2041-210X

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Abstract

1. Biodiversity and ecosystem function (BEF) studies aim to understand how ecosystems respond to a gradient of species diversity. Generalised Diversity- Interactions (DI) models are suitable for analysing the BEF relationship. These models relate an ecosystem function response of a community to the identity of the species in the community, their evenness (proportions) and interactions. The number of species in the community (richness) is included implicitly in a DI model.2. It is common in BEF studies to model an ecosystem function as a function of richness; while this can uncover trends in the BEF relationship, by definition, species diversity is broader than richness alone, and important patterns in the BEF relationship may remain hidden. Here, we introduce the DI models R package for implementing DI models. We show how richness is mathematically equivalent to a simplified DI model under certain conditions, and illustrate how using the DI multidimensional definition of species diversity can provide deeper insight to the BEF relationship compared to traditional approaches.3. Using DI models can lead to considerably improved model fit over other methods; it does this by incorporating variation due to the multiple facets of species diversity. Predicting from a DI model is not limited to the study design points, the model can interpolate or extrapolate to predict for any species composition and proportions (assuming there is sufficient coverage of this space in the study design).4. Expressing the BEF relationship as a function of richness alone can be useful to capture overall trends. However, collapsing the multiple dimensions of species diversity to a single dimension (such as richness) can result in valuable ecological information being lost.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	biodiversity and ecosystem function relationship; community composition; Diversity- Interactions models; species interactions;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Mathematics and Statistics Faculty of Science and Engineering > Research Institutes > Hamilton Institute
Item ID:	18804
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.14158
Depositing User:	Rafael de Andrade Moral
Date Deposited:	22 Aug 2024 14:24
Journal or Publication Title:	Methods in Ecology and Evolution
Publisher:	John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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