Protocol
Authors
Will Cornwell, David Ackerly
Overview
Methods for trait gradient analysis. Understand within- versus among- species variation in trait values across and environmental gradient. (This page is in development, come back soon for more information)
Background
Quantify alpha and beta trait decomposition for each species. Also calculates b, which is the unitless slope of the within species variation, and the niche breadth in trait units for each species in the dataset.
Materials/Equipment
R statistical package. Data must be in a specific format–see attached script
Units, terms, definitions
see script
Procedure
see script
Literature references
Ackerly D.D. and W.K. Cornwell. 2007. A trait-based approach to community assembly: partitioning of species trait values into within- and among-community components. Ecology Letters 10: 135-145.
Script
This file contains the R script as well as some supporting notes.