Gerkema, Jelyn and Bunker, Daniel E. and Cunliffe, Andrew M. and Bazzato, Erika and Marignani, Michela and Sitzia, Tommaso and Aubin, Isabelle and Chelli, Stefano and Rosell, Julieta A. and Poschlod, Peter and Penuelas, Josep and Dias, Arildo S. and Rossi, Christian and Shovon, Tanvir A. and Campos, Juan A. and Vanderwel, Mark C. and Mukul, Sharif A. and Cerabolini, Bruno E. L. and Sibret, Thomas and Herault, Bruno and Schmitt, Sylvain and Higuchi, Pedro and Tsakalos, James L. and Junaedi, Decky I. and Zhao, Yun-Peng and Minden, Vanessa and Silva, Ana Carolina da and Maskova, Tereza and Canullo, Roberto and Dong, Ning and Pos, Edwin T. (2025) Robustness and limitations of maximum entropy in plant community assembly. ECOLOGICAL INFORMATICS, 86: 103031. ISSN 1574-9541, 1878-0512
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
An in-depth understanding of local plant community assembly is critical to direct conservation efforts to promising areas and increase the efficiency of management strategies. This, however, remains elusive due to the sheer complexity of ecological processes. The maximum entropy-based Community Assembly via Trait Selection (CATS) model was designed to quantify the relative contributions of trait-based filtering, dispersal mass effects, and stochastic processes on community assembly. As a maximum entropy model, it does so without introducing additional bias or assumptions. Despite its increasing use, questions regarding its robustness and potential limitations remain. Here, we compared model predictions using either local or database-derived trait values, across different levels of species richness and between different taxonomic levels. A total of 19 datasets and 790 plots were analysed, spanning multiple habitat types (n = 18) and biomes (n = 7). Results indicate trait value origin does indeed influence model outcomes, warranting caution in selecting the method for obtaining trait data. We hypothesise that, for example, intraspecific trait variation combined with trait-based filtering or stochastic processes causes local and database trait values to deviate, potentially even further exacerbated by imputing missing trait data. Furthermore, trait-related information obtained from the model decreased with increasing species richness. We further hypothesise this could signal that stochastic processes are more dominant within species-rich systems, for example, due to functional redundancy or the existence of multiple fitness strategies. This general pattern was conserved across biomes, although with varying strength, showing CATS' robustness despite these challenges.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | NONTRIVIAL APPLICATIONS; NICHE DIFFERENTIATION; TRAITS; ECOLOGY; MAXIMIZATION; REGRESSION; ABUNDANCE; MODELS; TESTS; GAP; Plant ecology; Community assembly; Maximum entropy; Trait-based filtering; Dispersal mass effects |
| Subjects: | 500 Science > 570 Life sciences 500 Science > 580 Botanical sciences |
| Divisions: | Biology, Preclinical Medicine > Institut für Pflanzenwissenschaften > Lehrstuhl für Ökologie und Naturschutzbiologie (Prof. Dr. Peter Poschlod) |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Mar 2026 07:40 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Mar 2026 07:40 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/68071 |
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