Measuring phylogenetic and trait-based structure
In this work, the standardized mean phylogenetic distance (SES.MPD) and its functional analogy, the standardized pairwise trait distance (SES.PW) were applied to quantify phylogenetic and trait-based community structure (Swenson 2014). Using simulation procedure under a null model (independent swap) (Gotelli & Entsminger 2001), SES.MPD and SES.PW were calculated with the following equation:
SES = (Meanobs- Meannull)/sdnull
where, Meanobs is the observed MPD or PW within community, Meannull is the mean value of MPDs or PWs of 999 randomly generated communities, sdnull is the standard deviations of MPDs or PWs of 999 randomized communities. As species data was binary in each community in two datasets, calculation for phylogenetic and trait-based structure were accomplished without abundance weighted (abundance weighted = false).