The increasing availability of phylogenetic data, computing power and informatics tools has facilitated a rapid expansion of studies that apply phylogenetic data and methods to community ecology. Several key areas are reviewed in which phylogenetic information helps to resolve long‐standing controversies in community ecology, challenges previous assumptions, and opens new areas of investigation. In particular, studies in phylogenetic community ecology have helped to reveal the multitude of processes driving community assembly and have demonstrated the importance of evolution in the assembly process. Phylogenetic approaches have also increased understanding of the consequences of community interactions for speciation, adaptation and extinction. Finally, phylogenetic community structure and composition holds promise for predicting ecosystem processes and impacts of global change. Major challenges to advancing these areas remain. In particular, determining the extent to which ecologically relevant traits are phylogenetically conserved or convergent, and over what temporal scale, is critical to understanding the causes of community phylogenetic structure and its evolutionary and ecosystem consequences. Harnessing phylogenetic information to understand and forecast changes in diversity and dynamics of communities is a critical step in managing and restoring the Earth’s biota in a time of rapid global change. ![]() The PwC Alumni network is about helping you stay a part of the PwC community and connecting you to former colleagues and friends who have made an impact in your career. View Alumni program. PwC office locations by city in the US. View all offices. Introduction Community ecology investigates the nature of organismal interactions, their origins, and their ecological and evolutionary consequences. Community dynamics form the link between uniquely evolved species and ecosystem functions that affect global processes. In the face of habitat destruction worldwide, understanding how communities assemble and the forces that influence their dynamics, diversity and ecosystem function will prove critical to managing and restoring the Earth’s biota. Consequently, the study of communities is of paramount importance in the 21st century. Recently, there has been a rapidly increasing effort to bring information about the evolutionary history and genealogical relationships of species to bear on questions of community assembly and diversity (e.g.;;;;;;; ). Such approaches now allow community ecologists to link short‐term local processes to continental and global processes that occur over deep evolutionary time scales (;;;;;;;; ). This effort has been facilitated by the rapid rise in phylogenetic information, computing power and computational tools. Our goal here is to review how phylogenetic information contributes to community ecology in terms of the long‐standing questions it helps answer, the assumptions it challenges and the new questions it invites. In particular, we focus on the insights gained from applying phylogenetic approaches to explore the ecological and evolutionary factors that underlie the assembly of communities, and how the interactions among species within them ultimately influence evolutionary and ecosystem processes. ![]() There are three perspectives on the dominant factors that influence community assembly, composition and diversity. First is the classic perspective that communities assemble according to niche‐related processes, following fundamental ‘rules’ dictated by local environmental filters and the principle of competitive exclusion (e.g.;;; ). An alternative perspective is that community assembly is largely a neutral process in which species are ecologically equivalent (e.g. Cara membuka binder. A third perspective emphasizes the role of historical factors in dictating how communities assemble (; ). In the latter view, the starting conditions and historical patterns of speciation and dispersal matter more than local processes. The relative influence of niche‐related, neutral and historical processes is at the core of current debates on the assembly of communities and the coexistence of species (;;;; ). Suara starter mobil truk.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |