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.