Temporal change in functional rarity in marine fish assemblages
Abstract
Recent research has uncovered rapid compositional and structural reorganization of ecological assemblages, with these changes particularly evident in marine ecosystems. However, the extent to which these ongoing changes in taxonomic diversity are a proxy for change in functional diversity is not well understood. Here we focus on trends in rarity to ask how taxonomic rarity and functional rarity covary over time. Our analysis, drawing on 30 years of scientific trawl data, reveals that the direction of temporal shifts in taxonomic rarity in two Scottish marine ecosystems is consistent with a null model of change in assemblage size (i.e. change in numbers of species and/or individuals). In both cases, however, functional rarity increases, as assemblages become larger, rather than showing the expected decrease. These results underline the importance of measuring both taxonomic and functional dimensions of diversity when assessing and interpreting biodiversity change.
Citation
Moyes , F H , Trindade Santos , I & Magurran , A 2023 , ' Temporal change in functional rarity in marine fish assemblages ' , Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , vol. 290 , no. 1993 . https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.2273
Publication
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0962-8452Type
Journal article
Description
Funding: A.E.M. thanks the Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2019–402) for support.Collections
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