Week 12: Ordination, Gradients, and Evolutionary Diversity¶

Core Questions¶

• How do geographic space and environmental space differ?
• Does community composition track environmental gradients?
• How do phylogenetic and functional diversity change biodiversity interpretation?

Concepts¶

• PCA, PCoA, and NMDS.
• Environmental gradients.
• Community composition.
• Environmental filtering.
• Spatial structure.
• Phylogenetic diversity and evolutionary distinctiveness.
• Functional diversity, trait spaces, and missing trait data.

Python Tools¶

• scikit-learn.
• scipy.
• matplotlib.

Applied Lab¶

Students perform ordination on environmental variables or community dissimilarities, compare geographic and environmental space, and optionally add trait or phylogenetic information to evaluate functional or evolutionary diversity.

Deliverable¶

Submit an ordination figure and a short analysis explaining whether community composition tracks environmental space, geographic space, or both.