Trait evolution, community assembly, and the phylogenetic structure of ecological communities

NJB Kraft, WK Cornwell, CO Webb… - The American …, 2007 - journals.uchicago.edu
Taxa co-occurring in communities often represent a nonrandom sample, in phenotypic or
phylogenetic terms, of the regional species pool. While heuristic arguments have identified
processes that create community phylogenetic patterns, further progress hinges on a more
comprehensive understanding of the interactions between underlying ecological and
evolutionary processes. We created a simulation framework to model trait evolution,
assemble communities (via competition, habitat filtering, or neutral assembly), and test the …