Community assembly and diversification in Indo-Pacific coral reef fishes

Theories of species coexistence have played a central role in ecology and evolutionary studies of the origin and maintenance of biodiversity in highly diverse communities. The concept of niche and associated theories predict that competition for available ecological space leads to a ceiling in species richness that influences further diversification patterns. By contrast, the neutral theory supports that speciation is stochastic and diversity independent. We examined the phylogenetic community structure and diversification rates in three families and 14 sites within coral reef fish communities from the Indian and Pacific oceans. Using the phylogenetic relationships among 157 species estimated with 2300 bp of mitochondrial DNA, we tested predictions in terms of species coexistence from the neutral and niche theories. At the regional scale, our findings suggest that phylogenetic community structure shifts during community assembly to a pattern of dispersion as a consequence of allopatric speciation in recent times but overall, variations in diversification rates did not relate with sea level changes. At the local scale, the phylogenetic community structure is consistent with a neutral model of community assembly since no departure from a random sorting of species was observed. The present results support a neutral model of community assembly as a consequence of the stochastic and unpredictable nature of coral reefs favoring generalist and sedentary species competing for living space rather than trophic resources. As a consequence, the observed decrease in diversification rates may be seen as the result of a limited supply of living space as expected in a finite island model.     

Motifs in the assembly of food web networks

The assembly of local communities from regional pools is a multifaceted process that involves the confluence of interactions and environmental conditions at the local scale and biogeographic and evolutionary history at the regional scale. Understanding the relative influence of these factors on community structure has remained a challenge and mechanisms driving community assembly are often inferred from patterns of taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity. Moreover, community assembly is often viewed through the lens of competition and rarely includes trophic interactions or entire food webs. Here, we use motifs – subgraphs of nodes (e.g. species) and links (e.g. predation) whose abundance within a network deviates significantly as compared to a random network topology – to explore the assembly of food web networks found in the leaves of the northern pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea. We compared counts of three‐node motifs across a hierarchy of scales to a suite of null models to determine if motifs are over‐, under‐, or randomly represented. We then assessed if the pattern of representation of a motif in a given network matched that of the network it was assembled from. We found that motif representation in over 70% of site networks matched the continental network they were assembled from and over 75% of local networks matched the site networks they were assembled from for the majority of null models. This suggests that the same processes are shaping networks across scales. To generalize our results and effectively use a motif perspective to study community assembly, a theoretical framework detailing potential mechanisms for all possible combinations of motif representation is necessary.     

A complex speciation-richness relationship in a simple neutral model

Speciation is the "elephant in the room" of community ecology. As the ultimate source of biodiversity, its integration in ecology's theoretical corpus is necessary to understand community assembly. Yet, speciation is often completely ignored or stripped of its spatial dimension. Recent approaches based on network theory have allowed ecologists to effectively model complex landscapes. In this study, we use this framework to model allopatric and parapatric speciation in networks of communities. We focus on the relationship between speciation, richness, and the spatial structure of communities. We find a strong opposition between speciation and local richness, with speciation being more common in isolated communities and local richness being higher in more connected communities. Unlike previous models, we also find a transition to a positive relationship between speciation and local richness when dispersal is low and the number of communities is small. We use several measures of centrality to characterize the effect of network structure on diversity. The degree, the simplest measure of centrality, is the best predictor of local richness and speciation, although it loses some of its predictive power as connectivity grows. Our framework shows how a simple neutral model can be combined with network theory to reveal complex relationships between speciation, richness, and the spatial organization of populations.     

Extinctions,traits and phylogenetic community structure: insights from primate assemblages in Madagascar

Understanding the origin and maintenance of community composition through ecological and evolutionary time has been a central challenge in ecology. However little is known about how extinction may alter patterns of phylogenetic and phenotypic structure within communities. To address this, we used past and present primate communities in Madagascar as our model system to explore how a large extinction event within a taxon may alter evolutionary relationships and phenotypic distributions within communities. We also explored the influence of environment on the structure of present‐day lemur communities. We found a phylogenetic pattern of overdispersion in both past and present‐day communities. However, trait structures, including relative dispersion of body masses and trophic niches were altered following extinction. We posit that the overdispersed phylogenetic patterns have resulted from the unique ecological and evolutionary history of Madagascar's primates including a rapid adaptive radiation in the presence of a broad niche‐space available during colonization. Differences in trait structures between present and past primate communities may be reflective of the selective extinction process that eliminated the largest primates from the island. Habitat also appeared to influence the structure of present‐day lemur communities. Lower divergence in patterns of phylogeny, body mass and activity rhythms were found in dry relative to wet habitats. This may be due to potential advantages of being small and nocturnal in environments with low productivity and hot dry climates. We suggest current studies exploring community processes should consider potential effects of past extinction events. Such work is important for understanding community assembly, coexistence, and mechanisms driving extinctions, particularly given the current extinction crisis facing ecosystems globally.     

Disentangling niche and neutral influences on community assembly: assessing the performance of community phylogenetic structure tests

Patterns of phylogenetic relatedness within communities have been widely used to infer the importance of different ecological and evolutionary processes during community assembly, but little is known about the relative ability of community phylogenetics methods and null models to detect the signature of processes such as dispersal, competition and filtering under different models of trait evolution. Using a metacommunity simulation incorporating quantitative models of trait evolution and community assembly, I assessed the performance of different tests that have been used to measure community phylogenetic structure. All tests were sensitive to the relative phylogenetic signal in species metacommunity abundances and traits; methods that were most sensitive to the effects of niche-based processes on community structure were also more likely to find non-random patterns of community phylogenetic structure under dispersal assembly. When used with a null model that maintained species occurrence frequency in random communities, several metrics could detect niche-based assembly when there was strong phylogenetic signal in species traits, when multiple traits were involved in community assembly, and in the presence of environmental heterogeneity. Interpretations of the causes of community phylogenetic structure should be modified to account for the influence of dispersal.     

植物群落构建机制研究进展

群落构建研究对于解释物种共存和物种多样性的维持是至关重要的,因此一直是生态学研究的中心论题。尽管近年来关于生态位和中性理论的验证研究已经取得了显著的成果,但对于局域群落构建机制的认识仍存在很大争议。随着统计和理论上的进步使得用功能性状和群落谱系结构解释群落构建机制变为可能,主要是通过验证共存物种的性状和谱系距离分布模式来实现。然而,谱系和功能性状不能相互替代,多种生物和非生物因子同时控制着群落构建,基于中性理论的扩散限制、基于生态位的环境过滤和竞争排斥等多个过程可能同时影响着群落的构建。所以,综合考虑多种方法和影响因素探讨植物群落的构建机制,对于预测和解释植被对干扰的响应,理解生物多样性维持机制有重要意义。试图在简要回顾群落构建理论及研究方法发展的基础上,梳理其最新研究进展,并探讨整合功能性状及群落谱系结构的研究方法,解释群落构建和物种多样性维持机制的可能途径。在结合功能性状和谱系结构研究群落构建时,除了考虑空间尺度、环境因子、植被类型外,还应该关注时间尺度、选择性状的种类和数量、性状的种内变异、以及人为干扰等因素对群落构建的影响。     

放牧干扰梯度下川西亚高山植物群落的组合机理

为了阐明放牧干扰对川西亚高山区域植物群落的组合过程以及群落结构的影响, 研究了放牧干扰梯度下的功能群均匀度和群落谱系结构的变化趋势。结果显示: 在干扰较轻的阔叶林与针叶林样地, 部分样方的功能群均匀度显著高于无效模型, 随着干扰梯度的增强, 功能群均匀度呈线性下降, 样方平均值从0.930降至0.840, 其高于无效模型的次数也逐渐降低, 干扰程度较大的草甸中出现部分样方的功能群均匀度显著低于无效模型。随着干扰程度的增强, 群落的谱系结构指数也呈逐渐上升趋势, 净关联指数平均值由-0.634逐渐增加至2.360, 邻近类群指数由-0.158上升至2.179。草甸与低矮灌丛受干扰较为严重, 其大部分样方的谱系结构指数显著高于随机群落, 表明干扰群落的谱系结构呈聚集分布。功能群均匀度与谱系结构的变化趋势一致, 表明生境筛滤效应与种间竞争作用的平衡决定着群落的组合过程。干扰降低了竞争作用, 促进了少数耐干扰功能群的优势地位, 造成功能群均匀度下降, 同时通过生境筛滤作用, 使群落的谱系结构呈现出聚集分布; 而未干扰的群落中由于竞争作用的效应, 功能群均匀度较高, 谱系结构也更加分散。研究区域植物群落的功能群均匀度与物种丰富度呈负相关, 表明物种间特别是相似物种间的竞争限制了群落的物种多样性。研究结果说明, 生态位分化和物种间的相互竞争在物种共存与群落组合中具有重要作用。     

Phylogenetic community structure and phylogenetic turnover across space and edaphic gradients in western Amazonian tree communities

Ecological and evolutionary processes influence community assembly at both local and regional scales. Adding a phylogenetic dimension to studies of species turnover allows tests of the extent to which environmental gradients, geographic distance and the historical biogeography of lineages have influenced speciation and dispersal of species throughout a region. We compare measures of beta diversity, phylogenetic community structure and phylobetadiversity (phylogenetic distance among communities) in 34 plots of Amazonian trees across white‐sand and clay terra firme forests in a 60 000 square kilometer area in Loreto, Peru. Dominant taxa in white‐sand forests were phylogenetically clustered, consistent with environmental filtering of conserved traits. Phylobetadiversity measures found significant phylogenetic clustering between terra firme communities separated by geographic distances of <200–300 km, consistent within recent local speciation at the watershed scale in the Miocene‐aged clay‐soil forests near the foothills of the Andes. Although both distance and habitat type yielded statistically significant effects on both species and phylogenetic turnover, the patterns we observed were more consistent with an effect of habitat specialization than dispersal limitation. Our results suggest a role for both broad‐scale biogeographic and evolutionary processes, as well as habitat specialization, influencing community structure in Amazonian forests.     

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

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 phylogenetic pattern of the resulting communities. We found that phylogenetic community structure is greatest when traits are highly conserved and when multiple traits influence species membership in communities. Habitat filtering produces stronger phylogenetic structure when taxa with derived (as opposed to ancestral) traits are favored in the community. Nearest-relative tests have greater power to detect patterns due to competition, while total community relatedness tests perform better with habitat filtering. The size of the local community relative to the regional pool strongly influences statistical power; in general, power increases with larger pool sizes for communities created by filtering but decreases for communities created by competition. Our results deepen our understanding of processes that contribute to phylogenetic community structure and provide guidance for the design and interpretation of empirical research.     

Phylogenetic community structure metrics and null models: a review with new methods and software

Competitive exclusion and habitat filtering influence community assembly, but ecologists and evolutionary biologists have not reached consensus on how to quantify patterns that would reveal the action of these processes. Currently, at least 22 α‐diversity and 10 β‐diversity metrics of community phylogenetic structure can be combined with nine null models (eight for β‐diversity metrics), providing 278 potentially distinct approaches to test for phylogenetic clustering and overdispersion. Selecting the appropriate approach for a study is daunting. First, we describe similarities among metrics and null models across variance in phylogeny size and shape, species abundance, and species richness. Second, we develop spatially explicit, individual‐based simulations of neutral, competitive exclusion, or habitat filtering community assembly, and quantify the performance (type I and II error rates) of all 278 metric and null model combinations against each assembly process. Many α‐diversity metrics and null models are at least functionally equivalent, reducing the number of truly unique metrics to 12 and the number of unique metric + null model combinations to 72. An even smaller subset of metric and null model combinations showed robust statistical performance. For α‐diversity metrics, phylogenetic diversity and mean nearest taxon distance were best able to detect habitat filtering, while mean pairwise phylogenetic distance‐based metrics were best able to detect competitive exclusion. Overall, β‐diversity metrics tended to have greater power to detect habitat filtering and competitive exclusion than α‐diversity metrics, but had higher type 1 error in some cases. Across both α‐ and β‐diversity metrics, null model selection affected type I error rates more than metric selection. A null model that maintained species richness, and approximately maintained species occurrence frequency and abundance across sites, exhibited low type I and II error rates. This regional null model simulates neutral dispersal of individuals into local communities by sampling from a regional species pool. We introduce a flexible new R package, metricTester, to facilitate robust analyses of method performance.     

The role of phylogeny in desert rodent community assembly

Recent advances in molecular genetics and phylogenetic reconstruction have the potential to transform ecology by providing new insights into the historical evolution of ecological communities. This study by Stevens and collaborators complements decades of previous research on desert rodents, by combining data from a field study and a phylogenetic tree for Mojave Desert rodents to address patterns and processes of community assembly. The number of coexisting rodent species is positively correlated, and the average phylogenetic distance among these species is negatively correlated with perennial plant species richness. As rodent species diversity increases along a gradient of increasing environmental heterogeneity, communities are composed of increasingly related species: there is a consistent pattern of phylogenetic structure from over-dispersed through random to clumped. I discuss this pattern in the light of complementary results of previous studies. This paper is noteworthy for calling attention to still unanswered questions about how the historical events of speciation, colonization, extinction, and trait evolution and their relationship to past climates and vegetation have given rise to current patterns of community organization.     

Seasonal cycles,phylogenetic assembly,and functional diversity of orchid bee communities

Neotropical rainforests sustain some of the most diverse terrestrial communities on Earth. Euglossine (or orchid) bees are a diverse lineage of insect pollinators distributed throughout the American tropics, where they provide pollination services to a staggering diversity of flowering plant taxa. Elucidating the seasonal patterns of phylogenetic assembly and functional trait diversity of bee communities can shed new light into the mechanisms that govern the assembly of bee pollinator communities and the potential effects of declining bee populations. Male euglossine bees collect, store, and accumulate odoriferous compounds (perfumes) to subsequently use during courtship display. Thus, synthetic chemical baits can be used to attract and monitor euglossine bee populations. We conducted monthly censuses of orchid bees in three sites in the Magdalena valley of Colombia – a region where Central and South American biotas converge – to investigate the structure, diversity, and assembly of euglossine bee communities through time in relation to seasonal climatic cycles. In particular, we tested the hypothesis that phylogenetic community structure and functional trait diversity changed in response to seasonal rainfall fluctuations. All communities exhibited strong to moderate phylogenetic clustering throughout the year, with few pronounced bursts of phylogenetic overdispersion that coincided with the transition from wet‐to‐dry seasons. Despite the heterogeneous distribution of functional traits (e.g., body size, body mass, and proboscis length) and the observed seasonal fluctuations in phylogenetic diversity, we found that functional trait diversity, evenness, and divergence remained constant during all seasons in all communities. However, similar to the pattern observed with phylogenetic diversity, functional trait richness fluctuated markedly with rainfall in all sites. These results emphasize the importance of considering seasonal fluctuations in community assembly and provide a glimpse to the potential effects that climatic alterations may have on both pollinator communities and the ecosystem services they provide.     

Local and Regional Processes in Community Assembly

Controversy on whether local (deterministic) or regional (stochastic) factors control the structure of communities persists after decades of research. The main reason for why it has not been resolved may lie in the nature of evidence which largely comes from realized natural communities. In such communities assembly history leaves a mark that may support either set of factors. To avoid the confounding effects of assembly history we controlled for these effects experimentally. We created a null community by mixing 17 rock pool communities. We then divided the null community into replicates and distributed among treatments representing a gradient of factors from local to regional. We hypothesized that if deterministic factors dominate the assembly of communities, community structures should show a corresponding gradient from being very similar and convergent to dissimilar and divergent. In contrast, if local processes are predominantly stochastic in nature, such a gradient of community configurations should emerge even in the homogeneous setting. Our results appear to partially support both hypotheses and thus suggest that both deterministic and stochastic processes contribute to the assembly of communities. Furthermore, we found that to satisfactorily explain patterns observed in natural communities environmental heterogeneity and regional processes must also be considered. In conclusion, although deterministic mechanisms seem to be important in the assembly of communities, in natural systems their signal may be diluted and masked whenever other factors exert meaningful influence. Such factors increase the number of possible paths to the point that the number of paths equals the number of communities in a metacommunity.     

Exploring tree-habitat associations in a Chinese subtropical forest plot using a molecular phylogeny generated from DNA barcode loci

Elucidating the ecological mechanisms underlying community assembly in subtropical forests remains a central challenge for ecologists. The assembly of species into communities can be due to interspecific differences in habitat associations, and there is increasing evidence that these associations may have an underlying phylogenetic structure in contemporary terrestrial communities. In other words, by examining the degree to which closely related species prefer similar habitats and the degree to which they co-occur, ecologists are able to infer the mechanisms underlying community assembly. Here we implement this approach in a diverse subtropical tree community in China using a long-term forest dynamics plot and a molecular phylogeny generated from three DNA barcode loci. We find that there is phylogenetic signal in plant-habitat associations (i.e. closely related species tend to prefer similar habitats) and that patterns of co-occurrence within habitats are typically non-random with respect to phylogeny. In particular, we found phylogenetic clustering in valley and low-slope habitats in this forest, indicating a filtering of lineages plays a dominant role in structuring communities in these habitats and we found evidence of phylogenetic overdispersion in high-slope, ridge-top and high-gully habitats, indicating that distantly related species tended to co-occur in these high elevation habitats and that lineage filtering is less important in structuring these communities. Thus we infer that non-neutral niche-based processes acting upon evolutionarily conserved habitat preferences explain the assembly of local scale communities in the forest studied.     

Functional and phylogenetic structure of forest and savanna bird assemblages across spatial scales

Ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that drive community assembly vary in space and time. However, little is known about how such mechanisms act in contrasting habitats. Here, we estimated the functional and phylogenetic structure of forest and savanna bird assemblages across different spatial scales to understand: 1) the mechanisms that govern the structure of assemblages in these habitats; 2) the relationship between phylogenetic and functional structure; and 3) the influence of species richness on the functional and phylogenetic structure of assemblages. We used a null model where forest and savanna bird species were allowed to occur in the same null assemblages and other where species were separated based on their habitats. According to the first null model, forest bird assemblages were functionally and phylogenetically clustered at all spatial scales, whereas savanna bird assemblages generally showed random functional and phylogenetic structure. These results can be explained by the low dispersal rate of forest species across of the patchy habitats and the widespread distribution of savanna species. However, in the second null model, both forest and savanna bird assemblages showed random functional and phylogenetic structure at regional and local scales. This suggests that trait‐based assembly might not play an important role in both habitats and across different spatial scales. In addition, the phylogenetic and functional structure of assemblages were not correlated, evidencing that caution is necessary when using phylogenetic relationships as a surrogate to functional distances among species. Finally, the relationships between species richness and functional and phylogenetic structure indicated that an increase in the number of species can promote both clustering and overdispersion, depending on the studied habitat and scale. Our study shows that integrating different types of habitat, spatial scales and biodiversity components in a single framework can shed light on the mechanisms that determine the community assembly.     

Predicting community structure in snakes on Eastern Nearctic islands using ecological neutral theory and phylogenetic methods

Predicting species presence and richness on islands is important for understanding the origins of communities and how likely it is that species will disperse and resist extinction. The equilibrium theory of island biogeography (ETIB) and, as a simple model of sampling abundances, the unified neutral theory of biodiversity (UNTB), predict that in situations where mainland to island migration is high, species-abundance relationships explain the presence of taxa on islands. Thus, more abundant mainland species should have a higher probability of occurring on adjacent islands. In contrast to UNTB, if certain groups have traits that permit them to disperse to islands better than other taxa, then phylogeny may be more predictive of which taxa will occur on islands. Taking surveys of 54 island snake communities in the Eastern Nearctic along with mainland communities that have abundance data for each species, we use phylogenetic assembly methods and UNTB estimates to predict island communities. Species richness is predicted by island area, whereas turnover from the mainland to island communities is random with respect to phylogeny. Community structure appears to be ecologically neutral and abundance on the mainland is the best predictor of presence on islands. With regard to young and proximate islands, where allopatric or cladogenetic speciation is not a factor, we find that simple neutral models following UNTB and ETIB predict the structure of island communities.     

Shared environmental responses drive co‐occurrence patterns in river bird communities

Positive or negative patterns of co‐occurrence might imply an influence of biotic interactions on community structure. However, species may co‐occur simply because of shared environmental responses. Here, we apply two complementary modelling methodologies – a probabilistic model of significant pairwise associations and a hierarchical multivariate probit regression model – to 1) attribute co‐occurrence patterns in 100 river bird communities to either shared environmental responses or to other ecological mechanisms such as interaction with heterospecifics, and 2) examine the strength of evidence for four alternative models of community structure. Species co‐occurred more often than would be expected by random community assembly and the species composition of bird communities was highly structured. Co‐occurrence patterns were primarily explained by shared environmental responses; species’ responses to the environmental variables were highly divergent, with both strong positive and negative environmental correlations occurring. We found limited evidence for behaviour‐driven assemblage patterns in bird communities at a large spatial scale, although statistically significant positive associations amongst some species suggested the operation of facilitative mechanisms such as heterospecific attraction. This lends support to an environmental filtering model of community assembly as being the principle mechanism shaping river bird community structure. Consequently, species interactions may be reduced to an ancillary role in some avifaunal communities, meaning if shared environmental responses are not quantified studies of co‐occurrence may overestimate the role of species interactions in shaping community structure.     

Limited role of character displacement in the coexistence of congeneric Anelosimus spiders in a Madagascan montane forest

Evolutionary and ecological theory predicts that closely related and similar species should coexist infrequently because speciation is more likely to occur allopatrically than sympatrically, and because co‐occurring species with similar traits may compete for limited resources, leading to competitive exclusion or character displacement. Here we study the unusual coexistence of 10 similar congeneric species of Anelosimus spiders within a small forest fragment in Madagascar. We asked if these species radiated in sympatry or allopatry, and if there was evidence for local‐scale character displacement in body size and other species‐level traits. We sampled ～ 350 colonies (6346 individuals) along a 2800 m transect. We identified colonies using morphology and DNA barcoding, and tested the monophyly of local and regional species assemblages with time‐calibrated phylogenies. We used null model analysis and phylogenetic signal inference to test for patterns of segregation in body size, microhabitat, phenology, and seasonality of coexisting species. We found that all species belong to a Madagascan clade that radiated during the Pliocene, but that contemporary local assemblages are non‐monophyletic. This is consistent with allopatric speciation during periods of global cooling and expansion of grasslands, and subsequent species assembly as forest fragments re‐expanded and coalesced. We found no evidence for character displacement, except for overdispersion and even spacing in phenology: species were segregated by instars in a manner consistent with resource partitioning or maintenance of reproductive isolation. Overdispersion or even spacing in phenology may contribute to coexistence either through resource partitioning or mate recognition. However, there was no support for a scenario of resource partitioning and divergence of body size or other correlated morphological characters. These traits are better explained by evolutionary forces operating during speciation, rather than ecological forces operating during local community assembly.     

Phylogenetic analysis of community assembly and structure over space and time

Evolutionary ecologists are increasingly combining phylogenetic data with distributional and ecological data to assess how and why communities of species differ from random expectations for evolutionary and ecological relatedness. Of particular interest have been the roles of environmental filtering and competitive interactions, or alternatively neutral effects, in dictating community composition. Our goal is to place current research within a dynamic framework, specifically using recent phylogenetic studies from insular environments to provide an explicit spatial and temporal context. We compare communities over a range of evolutionary, ecological and geographic scales that differ in the extent to which speciation and adaptation contribute to community assembly and structure. This perspective allows insights into the processes that can generate community structure, as well as the evolutionary dynamics of community assembly.     

The merging of community ecology and phylogenetic biology

The increasing availability of phylogenetic data, computing power and informatics tools has facilitated a rapid expansion of studies that apply phylogenetic data and methods to community ecology. Several key areas are reviewed in which phylogenetic information helps to resolve long-standing controversies in community ecology, challenges previous assumptions, and opens new areas of investigation. In particular, studies in phylogenetic community ecology have helped to reveal the multitude of processes driving community assembly and have demonstrated the importance of evolution in the assembly process. Phylogenetic approaches have also increased understanding of the consequences of community interactions for speciation, adaptation and extinction. Finally, phylogenetic community structure and composition holds promise for predicting ecosystem processes and impacts of global change. Major challenges to advancing these areas remain. In particular, determining the extent to which ecologically relevant traits are phylogenetically conserved or convergent, and over what temporal scale, is critical to understanding the causes of community phylogenetic structure and its evolutionary and ecosystem consequences. Harnessing phylogenetic information to understand and forecast changes in diversity and dynamics of communities is a critical step in managing and restoring the Earth's biota in a time of rapid global change.