Imperial College London
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DrCristinaBanks-Leite

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park)

Reader in Conservation Ecology
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 2289c.banks

 
 
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Location

 

2.2MunroSilwood Park

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Hatfield:2018:10.1007/s40823-018-0032-x,
author = {Hatfield, JH and Harrison, MLK and Banks-Leite, C},
doi = {10.1007/s40823-018-0032-x},
journal = {Current Landscape Ecology Reports},
pages = {35--42},
title = {Functional diversity metrics: how they are affected by landscape change and how they represent ecosystem functioning in the tropics},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40823-018-0032-x},
volume = {3},
year = {2018}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - It is generally expected that landscape changes, such as habitat loss and fragmentation, should negatively affect functional diversity metrics, which in turn impact ecosystem functioning. In this review, we search for studies conducted in the tropics and published in the last 10 years to understand how different aspects of landscape change affect functional diversity metrics and how the latter are associated to ecosystem functioning. In total, we found 24 papers that assessed the effects of landscape metrics on functional diversity, evenness, divergence and composition, and although there was a general trend for functional diversity metrics to improve with habitat cover, we found a wide range of responses. Most surprisingly, however, we only found five studies from the tropics assessing the extent to which functional diversity metrics were correlated to measures of ecosystem functioning, and in general, very weak support was found. In conclusion, our results show that it is crucial to first investigate the level to which functional diversity metrics truly represent or may lead to changes in ecosystem functioning, and this is particularly important for animal communities in the tropics. Without such confirmation, there is little reason to pursue further work to reach a consensus regarding how landscape modification affects functional diversity metrics.
AU  - Hatfield,JH
AU  - Harrison,MLK
AU  - Banks-Leite,C
DO  - 10.1007/s40823-018-0032-x
EP  - 42
PY  - 2018///
SN  - 2364-494X
SP  - 35
TI  - Functional diversity metrics: how they are affected by landscape change and how they represent ecosystem functioning in the tropics
T2  - Current Landscape Ecology Reports
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40823-018-0032-x
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/63281
VL  - 3
ER  -
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