Rights statement: The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00227-019-3602-5
Accepted author manuscript, 812 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Article number | 152 |
---|---|
<mark>Journal publication date</mark> | 31/12/2019 |
<mark>Journal</mark> | Marine Biology |
Issue number | 12 |
Volume | 166 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Publication Status | Published |
Early online date | 8/11/19 |
<mark>Original language</mark> | English |
Trait-based ecology strives to better understand how species, through their bio-ecological traits, respond to environmental changes, and influence ecosystem functioning. Identifying which traits are most responsive to environmental changes can provide insight for understanding community structuring and developing sustainable management practices. However, misinterpretations are possible, because standard statistical methods (e.g., principal component analysis and linear regression) for identifying and ranking the responses of different traits to environmental changes ignore interspecific differences. Here, using both artificial data and real-world examples from marine fish communities, we show how considering species-specific responses can lead to drastically different results than standard community-level methods. By demonstrating the potential impacts of interspecific differences on trait dynamics, we illuminate a major, yet rarely discussed issue, highlighting how analytical misinterpretations can confound our basic understanding of trait responses, which could have important consequences for biodiversity conservation.