DOI: 10.5061/dryad.763v6
title: Data from: Phylogenetic measures of plant communities show long-term change and impacts of fire management in tallgrass prairie remnants

description: 1. Phylogenies are increasingly incorporated into ecological studies on
 the basis that evolutionary relatedness broadly correlates with trait
 similarity. However, phylogenetic approaches have rarely been applied to
 monitoring long-term community change or guiding management. 2. We
 analysed a 25-year resampling data set (1976–2001) of 41 tallgrass prairie
 remnants (Illinois, USA) to test for phylogenetic signals of plant
 community structure, change, environmental associations, fire management
 and functional traits. A community phylogeny was constructed using GenBank
 sequences and trait data were acquired from the TRY consortium.
 Phylogenetic measures of alpha and beta diversity were compared with
 taxonomic and functional measures. 3. From 1976–2001, communities became
 more phylogenetically clustered relative to null model expectations, i.e.
 increasingly restricted to subsets of species more closely related than
 expected by chance. Phylogeny was a sensitive indicator of environmental
 gradients and fire management. There were strong relationships between
 phylogeny and traits: key traits were phylogenetically non-random and
 phylogenetic diversity was a necessary complement to species richness for
 explaining variation in trait diversity. 4. Phylogeny revealed a shift in
 community structure over time, with sites having been phylogenetically
 random in 1976 but becoming differentiated from each other by 2001. In
 contrast, measures of taxonomic and functional diversity showed
 differentiation at both time points. Phylogenetic patterns likely
 reflected changes in species’ abundances mediated by the influence of
 environmental conditions and fire frequency. 5. Synthesis and
 applications. Phylogenetic analyses can elucidate factors central to sound
 monitoring and management of plant communities. In this system, phylogeny
 was not a proxy for other indicators, but provided information
 complementing taxonomic-based and trait-based approaches for understanding
 vegetation structure, change and response to fire management. Phylogenetic
 approaches to ecological analysis are increasingly accessible, but fuller
 understanding of phylogeny–trait relationships and further development of
 user-friendly analytical tools are needed for phylogenetics to widely
 inform restoration and management. In some systems, targeting phylogenetic
 diversity may be an effective means for restoring functionally diverse
 plant communities.
description: Species
 tableAngiosperm taxa found in
 dataset. "Code" can be used for matching with phylogeny and
 community data. Origins = [N]ative/[E]xotic, Duration =
 [A]nnual/[B]iennial/[P]erennial, Habit =
 [G]raminoid/[F]orb/[S]hrub/[V]ine/[T]ree/Subshrub[SS]. Wetland Indicator
 Status (WIS) follows
 http://plants.usda.gov/core/wetlandSearchSpeciesTable.csvSite informationInformation about remnant prairie sites in dataset. Fire frequency is proportion of years the site was burned between 1980 and 2001SiteInformation.csvCommunity dataPlot-level community data for all sites from 1976 and 2001. These data were collected by the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory, Marlin Bowles, and Michael Jones. See "Species table" to match codes used in this file with full species names. Characteristics of sites can be found in "Site information".CommunityData.csvCommunity phylogenyNewick tree file comprising 449 angiosperm taxa found in dataset. Tip labels are codes, identifiable to species by cross-referencing with species table.phylogeny.tre