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Parsimony analysis of ecological succession, a powerful tool for interpreting changes in community structure
Author(s) -
Wenzel John W.,
Luque Gloria M.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
cladistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.323
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1096-0031
pISSN - 0748-3007
DOI - 10.1111/j.1096-0031.2008.00215.x
Subject(s) - cladistics , ecological succession , ecology , biology , community , hierarchy , robustness (evolution) , phylogenetic tree , biochemistry , ecosystem , gene , economics , market economy
We apply cladistic parsimony analysis to data sets from successional ecology, borrowing data from studies of the recovery of different communities, including ants in Spain, ants and birds in Australia, and butterflies in Costa Rica. Resultant parsimony analysis demonstrate increasing diversity, rooted at the poorest site and year, extending to either the various (rich) control sites, or with branches indicating alternative assemblages of species in some study sites. This analysis produces graphical summaries that are useful to evaluate the path of succession (species following one another). We demonstrate that the product of cladistic analysis compares favorably with methods commonly used in ecology, explicitly revealing a hierarchy that may relate closely to a time series, includes rare species, and illustrates how individual species relate to observed patterns. We detail certain operational considerations that influence the performance of the cladistic method, and we discuss the robustness of the method. This technique may be applied to study of the patterns of assemblage of natural or disturbed communities, both when and where each species appears as well as the order of appearance of species to develop a rich community. © The Willi Hennig Society 2008.