DOI: 10.5061/dryad.0zpc8672w
title: Data from a flexible framework to assess patterns and drivers of beta diversity across spatial scales

description: The patterns and underlying ecological (e.g., environmental filtering) and
 historical (e.g., priority effects) drivers of beta diversity are
 scale-dependent but generally difficult to distinguish and rarely explored
 with a sufficiently broad range of spatial scales. We propose a general
 scale-explicit framework to assess and contrast the patterns and drivers
 of beta diversity across hierarchical spatial scales ranging from within
 fine-scale ecoregion-scale to among broad-scale ecoregion-scale. By
 applying this framework to aquatic macroinvertebrate datasets, we show
 that beta diversity generally increases with spatial extent. With
 an increasing spatial extent, beta diversity shifts from being more
 influenced by environmental filtering to being more influenced by recent
 historical factors (i.e., past beta diversity). Such recent historical
 effects may result from past environmental variation rather than priority
 effects. We also found that the small-scale and large-scale environmental
 drivers act differently on beta diversity across spatial extents. Our
 research reveals a complex spatial-scale dependence in beta diversity
 patterns and their drivers and provides a more holistic understanding of
 beta diversity dynamics. Our framework represents a flexible way to
 unravel the internal structure of beta diversity across scales by
 partitioning of entire beta diversity variation into scale-specific
 differences and may have broad application in community ecology, landscape
 planning and biodiversity conservation.
description: Data are compiled in different files containing the following
 information: 1) Presence-absence macroinvertebrate taxon dataset in the
 previous survey, 2) Presence-absence macroinvertebrate taxon dataset in
 the following survey, 3) dataset of explanatory variables.
description: # Macroinvertebrate taxon dataset assembled two different times (past and
 contemporary) and explanatory data Authors: Siwen He, Chunyan Qin, Janne
 Soininen; A flexible framework to assess patterns and drivers of beta
 diversity across spatial scales Correspondence: Siwen He;
 siwenhe@cqu.edu.cn ### Description of files: 1.
 nrsa0304\_past\_communities.csv: containing the following information:
 Presence-absence macroinvertebrate taxon dataset in previous (2000-2004)
 survey 2. nrsa0809\_contemporary\_communities.csv: containing the
 following information: Presence-absence macroinvertebrate taxon dataset in
 the following (2008-2009) survey 3. Explanatory\_variables.csv: containing
 nine physicochemical variables, and four landscape variables, and five
 spatial network variables, and four bioclimatic variables Physicochemical
 variables: * NH4 (mg/L) ammonia nitrogen * total.P (μg/L) total phosphorus
 * NO3 (mg N/L) nitrate * pH.lab pH * DOC (mg/L) dissolved organic carbon *
 LWD.reach (volume (m3) per 100m channel) large woody debris cover * Cond
 (μS/cm) conductivity * NAT.cover (proportion of areal cover) natural cover
 * ALG.cover (proportion of areal cover) algal cover Landscape variables: *
 pct.for (% of basin area) forested land cover * pct.ag (% of basin area)
 agricultural land cover * pct.urb (% of basin area) urban land cover *
 pct.ISC (% of basin area) impervious surface cover Spatial network
 variables: * site.lat (GPS decimal degrees) latitude * site.long (GPS
 decimal degrees) longitude * basin.area (square kilometers) basin area *
 mean.annual.flow (cubic feet per second (cfs) at bottom of flowline) mean
 annual flow * site.centrality (distance to centroid in km) network
 centrality Bioclimatic variables: * BIO1 (degrees C, times 10) annual
 temperature * BIO4 (degrees C, times 100) temperature seasonality * BIO12
 (mm) annual precipitation * BIO15 (mm) seasonality of precipitation,
 coefficient of variation