Taxonomic and Functional Beta Diversity in a Forest Mosaic and Its Implications for Community Assembly

Abstract

Understanding the processes that shape community assembly is one of the key goals of ecology. One possible mechanism of assembly is deterministic assembly, in which species traits determine their ability to establish and persist in a location; lack of resources, predation and disturbance are all thought to lead to deterministic assembly. Alternatively, there is stochastic assembly, where community assembly is virtually random. The purpose of this study was to examine beta diversity, which is the variation that exists between two or more communities, to determine which assembly process is present in a given community.