Untangling the contributions of species and site to beta diversity in a temperate forest region

The variation of species composition among communities, commonly known as beta diversity, is at the heart of ecology because of its role in explaining community assembly. This study presents a new approach that integrates functional and phylogenetic characteristics into the traditional beta diversity framework. Drawing on the observations from a large-scale forest inventory network, our results show that functional- and phylogenetic-based metrics offer distinct insights beyond those provided by species-based metrics. Species-based metrics help to identify species with specific distribution and locations with unique composition. Functional and phylogenetic-based metrics aid in identifying species and locations with distinctive ecological and evolutionary attributes. Furthermore, upon integrating functional and phylogenetic information, the relative contribution of deterministic processes in driving biodiversity patterns become more apparent. Our expanded framework provides a new opportunity to characterize the ecological uniqueness of species and locations, helping to reveal more detailed insights into assembly processes and guide biodiversity conservation.