José C. Carvalho

University of Minho · University of Azores

Comparable data is essential to understand biodiversity patterns. While assemblage or community inventorying requires comprehensive sampling, monitoring focuses on as few components as possible to detect changes. Quantifying species, their evolutionary history, and the way they interact requires studying changes in taxonomic (TD), phylogenetic (PD)...

The study of functional diversity (FD) provides ways to understand phenomena as complex as community assembly or the dynamics of biodiversity change under multiple pressures. Different frameworks are used to quantify FD, either based on dissimilarity matrices (e.g. Rao entropy, functional dendrograms) or multidimensional spaces (e.g. convex hulls,...

The study of functional diversity (FD) provides ways to understand phenomena as complex as community assembly or the dynamics of biodiversity change under multiple pressures. Different frameworks are used to quantify FD, either based on dissimilarity matrices (e.g., Rao entropy, functional dendrograms) or multidimensional spaces (e.g. convex hulls,...

Aim: Understanding the variation in community composition and species abundances (i.e., β-diversity) is at the heart of community ecology. A common approach to examine β-diversity is to evaluate directional variation in community composition by measuring the decay in the similarity among pairs of communities along spatial or environmental distance...

Aim Habitat diversity has been linked to the diversity and structure of island communities, however, little is known about patterns and processes within habitats. Here we aim to determine the contributions of habitat type and inferred dispersal frequency to the differences in taxonomic structure between assemblages in the same island habitat. Loca...

Understanding the variation in community composition and species abundances, i.e., β-diversity, is at the heart of community ecology. A common approach to examine β-diversity is to evaluate directional turnover in community composition by measuring the decay in the similarity among pairs of communities along spatial or environmental distances. We p...

Ecological systems are the quintessential complex systems, involving numerous high-order interactions and non-linear relationships. The most commonly used statistical modelling techniques can hardly reflect the complexity of ecological patterns and processes. Finding hidden relationships in complex data is now possible through the use of massive co...

Hutchinson’s n-dimensional hypervolume concept holds a central role across different fields of ecology and evolution. The question of the amount of hypervolume overlap and differentiation between species is of great interest to understand the processes that drive niche dynamics, competitive interactions and, ultimately, community assembly. A framew...

Aim The main aims were to determine: (a) the relative contribution of species replacement and richness difference from components to overall taxonomic (TDβ) and functional (FDβ) beta diversity of spider communities; (b) the degree to which TDβ and FDβ components can be explained by the environmental or geographic predictors; (c) whether FDβ compone...

Hutchinson's n-dimensional hypervolume concept holds a central role across different fields of ecology and evolution. The question of the amount of hypervolume overlap and differentiation between species is of great interest to understand the processes that drive niche dynamics, competitive interactions and, ultimately, community assembly. A novel...

Islands harbour evolutionary and ecologically unique biota, which are currently disproportionately threatened by a multitude of anthropogenic factors, including habitat loss, invasive species and climate change. Native forests on oceanic islands are important refugia for endemic species, many of which are rare and highly threatened. Long-term monit...

Won the "Alan R. Johnson Award for Best Poster".

Understanding the impacts caused by invasive plants on higher trophic levels is fundamental to predict future changes to native communities. Invasive plants like Acacia longifolia can change habitat structure and thereby alter the taxonomic and functional diversity and composition of predator communities. This work aims to evaluate the effect of th...

Freshwater systems have been profoundly changed by the construction of dams, and the influence of dams on bat activity is poorly understood. In this study, we analyzed the effects of small dams along mountain streams on local bat communities. This work was carried out in five small streams located in the NE of Portugal using bioacoustic surveys dur...

1. Inventorying requires comprehensive sampling, while monitoring should build on it and focus on as few components as possible to detect changes in time or space. To sample or acquire information for both purposes can therefore be viewed as different processes, herewith called α-sampling and β-sampling. Biodiversity covers species, their genetic d...

The evaluation of the abundance, occurrence and health of cetacean populations is of major importance for the characterisation of the entire Portuguese continental waters (PCW) in order to manage and protect its resources. The annual aerial campaigns developed within the Life+ MARPRO project constitute the first standardised effort to describe and...

A key challenge in island biogeography is to quantity the role of dispersal in shaping biodiversity patterns among the islands of a given archipelago. Here, we propose such a framework. Dispersal within oceanic archipelagos may be conceptualized as a spatio-temporal process dependent on: (1) the spatial distribution of islands, because the probabil...

Appendix S1. The principal data sources and summary of biological and geographical data for Hawaii, Azores and Canary Islands.

Integration of ecological and genetic approaches is a particularly powerful strategy to identify natural population diversity and structure over different timescales. To investigate the potential occurrence of population differentiation in long-finned pilot whales Globicephala melas in the North Atlantic, both biogeochemical (fatty acids and stable...

Novel algorithms have been recently developed to estimate alpha and partition beta diversity in all their dimensions (taxon, phylogenetic and functional diversity – TD , PD and FD ), whether communities are completely sampled or not. The R package BAT – Biodiversity Assessment Tools – performs a number of analyses based on either species identities...

Distribution patterns of species and the causes driving its distribution have always been central questions in ecology, as well as the mechanisms determining species composition and structure of biological assemblages. In the present work the distribution patterns of the macrofauna associated with Saccorhiza polyschides holdfasts along the western...

Aim Our aim was to determine the relative contribution of species replacement and richness differences to overall beta diversity in Macaronesian spiders, the influence of several biogeographical drivers in shaping such dissimilarity patterns, and how these change according to the dispersal ability of spiders. Location Four Macaronesian archipelago...

Complete sampling of all dimensions of biodiversity is a formidable task, even for small areas. Undersampling is the norm, and the underquantification of diversity is a common outcome. Estimators of taxon diversity ( TD ) are widely used to correct for undersampling. Yet, no similar strategy has been developed for phylogenetic ( PD ) or functional...

AimTo propose a unified framework for quantifying taxon (Tβ), phylogenetic (Pβ) and functional (Fβ) beta diversity via pairwise comparisons of communities, which allows these types of beta diversity to be partitioned into ecologically meaningful additive components. LocationGlobal, with case studies in Europe and the Azores archipelago. Methods Usi...

The development in recent years of new beta diversity analytical approaches highlighted valuable information on the different processes structuring ecological communities. A crucial development for the understanding of beta diversity patterns was also its differentiation in two components: species turnover and richness differences. In this study, w...

List of ground beetle species. List of ground beetle species found in 26 sites in Madeira Island Laurisilva, including information on their distribution status. (DOC)

Detailed sampling site locations. List of sampling sites names and their geographic coordinates (in decimal degrees) and altitude (in meters). (DOC)

Beta diversity and nestedness are central concepts of ecology and biogeography and evaluation of their relationships is in the focus of contemporary ecological and conservation research. Beta diversity patterns are originated from two distinct processes: the replacement (or turnover) of species and the loss (or gain) of species leading to richness...

The negative impact of anthropogenic disturbance and land-use changes on large mammals is generally recognized within conservation biology. In southeastern Norway, both moose (Alces alces) and roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) occur throughout human-modified landscapes, facilitating an interesting comparative study of their habitat use. By using pelle...

Aim To determine the relative contribution of species replacement and species richness differences to the emergence of beta-diversity patterns. Innovation A novel method that disentangles all compositional differences (βcc, overall beta diversity) in its two components, species replacement (β-3) and species richness differences (βrich) is proposed....

This paper describes three new species of the genus Zodarion from the Iberian Peninsula: Z. alentejanum, Z. cesari, and Z. costapratae. One species, Z. lusitanicum, is newly recorded for Spain. In total 46 zodariid species are known from the Iberian Peninsula to date, of which 22 species are recorded from Portugal and 35 species from Spain. New fau...

The Iberian Peninsula is recognized for its high levels of species richness, rarity and endemicity. Our main aim was to study biogeographic patterns of spiders in coastal dunes along a gradient of mediterraneity. Distance-decay of similarity, nestedness and co-occurrence metrics were used to explore spider’ distribution patterns. A similarity analy...

1. The Iberian Peninsula is one of the most relevant areas in terms of species richness, rarity and endemism in the Mediterranean Basin. Using spiders as a model, we studied the relative importance of environmental and non-environmental spatial variation along a gradient of mediterraneity on the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula. 2. We perform...

Aim The Mediterranean Basin is recognized for its high levels of species richness, rarity and endemicity. Our main aim was to evaluate the relative effects of environmental and spatial variables and their scale-specific importance on beta diversity patterns along a gradient of mediterraneity, using spiders as a model group. Location This study was...

The Iberian Peninsula comprises two distinct biogeographic areas: a temperate Atlantic Eurosiberian (north) and a Mediterranean (centre and south), and they provide very different biotopes, landscapes and prey for carnivores. One example is an abundance of the wild rabbit Orytolagus cuniculus in the Mediterranean zone, which contrasts with the Euro...

The European wild rabbitOryctolagus cuniculus (Linnaeus, 1758) populations in the Iberian Peninsula has suffered a serious decline. Therefore, the knowledge about the factors that influence rabbit distribution and abundance is of major interest for conservation and management programmes. Rabbit relative abundance was evaluated by pellet counting in...

The European wild rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus, is a key species in the Iberian ecosystems. However, its populations are seriously depleted. Therefore, the devel- opment of habitat suitability models could be an important step towards the esta- blishment of management and recovery plans. An habitat suitability model was developed for the rabbit in...

The preliminary results of studies on food niches of predators in a mountain habitat are presented. The diet of Vulpes vulpes, Felis silvestris and Genetta genetta was determined by scat analyses. Data was collected from a study area located in the Peneda-Gerês National Park from January to December at altitudes ranging from 800m to 1250m in open a...