Rights statement: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Bastos-Pereira, R., Chagas, T. R. F., de Carvalho, D. R., Rabello, A. M., Beiroz, W., Tavares, K. P., Lima, K. C. B., Rabelo, L. M., Valenzuela, S., Correa, C. M. A., Pompeu, P. S., & Ribas, C. R. (2022). Are the functional diversity terms functional? The hindrances of functional diversity understanding in the Brazilian scientific community. Ecological Research, 1– 17. https://doi.org/10.1111/1440-1703.12306 which has been published in final form at https://esj-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1440-1703.12306 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Are the functional diversity terms functional?
T2 - The hindrances of functional diversity understanding in the Brazilian scientific community
AU - Bastos‐Pereira, Rafaela
AU - Chagas, Tássia Rayane Ferreira
AU - Carvalho, Débora Reis
AU - Rabello, Ananza Mara
AU - Beiroz, Wallace
AU - Tavares, Karla Palmieri
AU - Lima, Karen Cristina Braga
AU - Rabelo, Lucas Mendes
AU - Valenzuela, Silvia
AU - Correa, César M. A.
AU - Pompeu, Paulo Santos
AU - Ribas, Carla Rodrigues
N1 - This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Bastos-Pereira, R., Chagas, T. R. F., de Carvalho, D. R., Rabello, A. M., Beiroz, W., Tavares, K. P., Lima, K. C. B., Rabelo, L. M., Valenzuela, S., Correa, C. M. A., Pompeu, P. S., & Ribas, C. R. (2022). Are the functional diversity terms functional? The hindrances of functional diversity understanding in the Brazilian scientific community. Ecological Research, 1– 17. https://doi.org/10.1111/1440-1703.12306 which has been published in final form at https://esj-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1440-1703.12306 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
PY - 2022/7/31
Y1 - 2022/7/31
N2 - Interest in functional diversity has grown in recent years, indicating that knowledge on ecosystem functions gain importance. However, the incongruent use of terms may lead to misunderstandings and incomparable results. We aimed to review terms used in functional diversity among the Brazilian scientific community to identify if there is a lack of consensus in the terminology used. We applied online surveys to assess how these terms have been used by the Brazilian academics and searched for their definitions in the scientific literature. The definition of “ecological function” by Brazilian academics is like that of the niche, but we only found two articles defining such a term in the literature. Thus, it seems that “ecosystem function” is a more commonly used term outside of Brazil. The definition of “guilds” coincided with that used in the literature, although we still observed a lack of consensus in the latter. For “traits,” “functional group,” and “functional diversity” concepts, we found some discrepancy between the literature and questionnaires. These inconsistencies can be related to the use of different organizational levels for the definition of traits and to the practice of replacing species with functional groups in standard taxonomic diversity metrics, considering them as measurements of functional diversity. The adoption of cohesive terminology is crucial to ensure the comparability of scientific results in the scientific literature. However, finding a consensus in ecology represents a hard task; therefore, we encourage that, at least, researchers make clear which key concepts they adopted in their research to avoid misunderstandings.
AB - Interest in functional diversity has grown in recent years, indicating that knowledge on ecosystem functions gain importance. However, the incongruent use of terms may lead to misunderstandings and incomparable results. We aimed to review terms used in functional diversity among the Brazilian scientific community to identify if there is a lack of consensus in the terminology used. We applied online surveys to assess how these terms have been used by the Brazilian academics and searched for their definitions in the scientific literature. The definition of “ecological function” by Brazilian academics is like that of the niche, but we only found two articles defining such a term in the literature. Thus, it seems that “ecosystem function” is a more commonly used term outside of Brazil. The definition of “guilds” coincided with that used in the literature, although we still observed a lack of consensus in the latter. For “traits,” “functional group,” and “functional diversity” concepts, we found some discrepancy between the literature and questionnaires. These inconsistencies can be related to the use of different organizational levels for the definition of traits and to the practice of replacing species with functional groups in standard taxonomic diversity metrics, considering them as measurements of functional diversity. The adoption of cohesive terminology is crucial to ensure the comparability of scientific results in the scientific literature. However, finding a consensus in ecology represents a hard task; therefore, we encourage that, at least, researchers make clear which key concepts they adopted in their research to avoid misunderstandings.
KW - Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
U2 - 10.1111/1440-1703.12306
DO - 10.1111/1440-1703.12306
M3 - Journal article
VL - 37
SP - 505
EP - 521
JO - Ecological Research
JF - Ecological Research
SN - 0912-3814
IS - 4
ER -