Species that share traits do not necessarily form distinct and universally applicable functional effect groups

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 516:23-34 (2014) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps11020 Species that share traits do not necessarily form distinct and universally applicable functional effect groups Fiona Murray1,2,*, Alex Douglas1,**, Martin Solan1,3,** 1Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Zoology Building, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen AB24 2TZ, UK 2Present address: Centre for Marine Biodiversity and Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK 3Present address: Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, University of Southampton, Waterfront Campus, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK *Corresponding author: fiona.murray25@gmail.com**These authors contributed equally to this work ABSTRACT: Recent studies considering the contribution of biodiversity to ecosystem functioning have emphasised the functional importance of individual species and, in so doing, have rekindled the use of categorical descriptors that group species according to their relative contribution to ecosystem processes or functioning. Such functional effect groupings, however, tend to be based on specific traits or contributory roles that are assumed to adequately characterise the functional importance of a species, rather than being based on direct measures of ecosystem processes and functions. This decoupling of organism-environment interaction is difficult to reconcile and, when applied widely, distorts understanding of the mediating role that species play in natural ecosystems. In this study, we begin to address this problem by characterising the functional contributions of 7 benthic invertebrate species for 2 ecosystem processes (particle reworking and bioirrigation) linked to 4 ecosystem functions (changing concentrations of NH4-N, NOx-N, PO4-P and SiO2-Si) and use these data to derive functional effect groupings. We show that whilst it is possible to categorise species according to how they influence ecosystem properties, the membership and number of functional effect groups depends on which ecosystem property is considered. Furthermore, we demonstrate that categorisations based on functional effects are not synonymous with species taxonomy and that they cannot be applied generically even when considering closely linked biogeochemical processes. Collectively, our findings call for a rethink of how functional effect groups are defined and emphasise the need to interrogate presumed links between species and ecosystem properties across a range of biodiversity-environment contexts. KEY WORDS: Functional groups · Functional traits · Ecosystem function · Functional diversity · Bioturbation · Bioirrigation Full text in pdf format Supplementary material PreviousNextCite this article as: Murray F, Douglas A, Solan M (2014) Species that share traits do not necessarily form distinct and universally applicable functional effect groups. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 516:23-34. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps11020 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 516. Online publication date: December 03, 2014 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2014 Inter-Research.