The relative importance of deterministic processes versus chance is one of the most important questions in science. We analyze the success of variance partitioning methods used to explain variation in β-diversity and partition it into environmental, spatial, and spatially structured environmental components. We test the hypotheses that 1) the number of environmental descriptors in a study would be positively correlated with the percentage of β-diversity explained by the environment, and that the environment would explain more variation in β-diversity than spatial or shared factors in VP analyses, 2) increasing the complexity of environmental descriptors would help account for more of the total variation in β-diversity, and 3) studies based on functional groups would account for more of the total variation in β-diversity than studies based on taxonomic data. Results show that the amount of unexplained β-diversity is on average 65.6%. There was no evidence showing that the number of environmental descriptors, increased complexity of environmental descriptors, or utilizing functional diversity allowed researchers to account for more variation in β-diversity. We review the characteristics of studies that account for a large percentage of variation in β-diversity as well as explanations for studies that accounted for little variation in β-diversity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BGMYU2/oai:scholarsarchive.byu.edu:etd-10257 |
| Date | 03 August 2020 |
| Creators | Lamb, Kevin Vieira |
| Publisher | BYU ScholarsArchive |
| Source Sets | Brigham Young University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/ |
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