Conclusions
By combining prior theoretical efforts (Kraft & Ackerly 2010; Kraftet al. 2007; Cavender-Bares et al. 2004; Webb et
al. 2002) and the thought of distinct contributions displayed by traits
(predominant and assistant traits), we proposed a novel framework to
understand community assembly. Relying on phylogenetic relatedness acts
as an aggregate of interspecific niche dissimilarity, the phylogenetic
dispersion in simple habitat deserve to be predictable by assessing the
functional dispersion of predominant traits. However, phylogenetic and
functional dispersion within complex habitat becomes extremely
complicated, which highly depends on the variations in trait role, trait
conservatism and habitat heterogeneity.
With two datasets of rodents in the HMs, we presented a case study to
reveal the dominant ecological process assembling community. Resulting
from multiple interactions between stochastic and deterministic
processes in heterogeneous habitat, most of rodent assemblages exhibited
phylogenetic and functional random, which has prevented us to estimate
the functional roles of morphological traits. Due to higher level of
habitat heterogeneity and enlarged community components, phylogenetic
and morphological structure of rodent community at regional scale
exhibited random pattern along elevational gradient and performed weak
dependence on environmental variables. Despite of a series of inevitable
deficiencies, this work has improved our mechanistic understanding on
community assembly.