The relative importance of abiotic and biotic environmental conditions for taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity of spiders across spatial scales

• Main Authors: Masviken, Johannes, Dalen, Love, Noren, Karin, Dalerum, Fredrik
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer 2023
• Subjects: Elevation; Environmental gradients; Biodiversity dimensions; Taxonomic diversity; Phylogenetic diversity; Functional diversity; Community regulation; Spatial scale; Araneae; SDG-15: Life on land; Spiders (Araneae); Española; Northern Sweden
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2263/98015; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-023-05383-0; https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22643935

DATA ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT : Data supporting the results is available on figshare (https://figshare.com/10.6084/m9.figshare.22643935). Both abiotic and biotic conditions may be important for biodiversity. However, their relative importance may vary among different diversity dimensions as well as across spatial scales. Spiders (Araneae) offer an ecologically relevant system for evaluating variation in the relative strength abiotic and biotic biodiversity regulation. We quantified the relative importance of abiotic and biotic conditions for three diversity dimensions of spider communities quantified across two spatial scales. Spiders were surveyed along elevation gradients in northern Sweden. We focused our analysis on geomorphological and climatic conditions as well as vegetation characteristics, and quantified the relative importance of these conditions for the taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity of spider communities sampled across one intermediate (500 m) and one local (25 m) scale. There were stronger relationships among diversity dimensions at the local than the intermediate scale. There were also variation in the relative influence of abiotic and biotic conditions among diversity dimensions, but this variation was not consistent across spatial scales. Across both spatial scales, vegetation was related to all diversity dimensions whereas climate was important for phylogenetic and functional diversity. Our study does not fully support stronger abiotic regulation at coarser scales, and conversely stronger abiotic regulation at more local scales. Instead, our results indicate that community assembly is shaped by interactions between abiotic constrains in species distributions and biotic conditions, and that such interactions may be both scale and context dependent. Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología, Göran Gustafssons Stiftelser, and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Open Access funding ...