Can we consider the additive partitioning of beta diversity as a tool to decide about conservation strategies?
Jason Tylianakis' PhD work might interest you...
1) Spatiotemporal variation in the diversity of hymenoptera across a tropical habitat gradient. ECOLOGY, Vol: 86, Pages: 3296-3302
2) Tylianakis JM, Klein AM, Lozada T, Tscharntke Tet al., 2006, Spatial scale of observation affects alpha, beta and gamma diversity of cavity-nesting bees and wasps across a tropical land-use gradient, JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY, Vol: 33, Pages: 1295-1304
It is a challenging question. At first, all ecological studies will have a direct or indirect link to conservation. Particularly for additive partitioning, it will be informative if you have a prior expectation of some important scales in which communities varies. For instance, aquatic communities in river basins can vary among sampling points located in a same stream (local variation due to micro-scale differences, for instance), or can vary among neighboring streams (larger scale variation due to environmental differences among streams or dispersal limitation, for instance). By applying additive partitioning, you can observe:i) which scale have the highest absolute value of beta diversity; ii) if the observed values differ from null models - the observed partitoning could be expected by chance. For instance, small-scale beta diversity can be, in absolute terms, higher than large-scale beta diversity, but not different from a null model. The classic papers below can be helpful:
- Crist T. O., Veech J. A., Gering J. C., Summerville K. S. (2003) Partitioning species diversity across landscapes and regions: a hierarchical analysis of alpha, beta, and gamma diversity. American Naturalist, Vol. 162, 734-743.
- Gering J. C., Crist T. O., Veech J. A. (2003) Additive Partitioning of Species Diversity across Multiple Spatial Scales: Implications for Regional Conservation of Biodiversity. Conservation Biology, Vol. 17, Nº2, 488-499.
- Veech J. A., Summerville K. S., Crist T. O., Gering J. C. (2002) The additive partitioning of species diversity: recent revival of an old idea. Oikos, 99, 3-9.
I am also preparing a manuscript using this approach with a student, if you want to talk more about it.
Sorry about my delay, thank you all for your comments and the suggested papers
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