Because ecosystems ARE multidimensional. They are composed of multiples species, that represent multiple functional roles and interact in multiple ways. So why shouldn’t it be? Why should stability be studied from the lens of particular summary metrics, such as productivity, or species richness, or functional dispersion, when these only reflect part of the story?
Unable to find the answers to these questions and a methodological framework that allowed me to describe ecosystem states by taking into account the contribution of multiple ecosystem components, I and my co-authors have developed a way forward in this direction. We have made use of the R package “hypervolume” and used it as a tool to describe ecosystem states from a multidimensional perspective. The framework we propose can be adapted to many different kinds of data, such as species abundances their functional trait values, landscape composition, metabarcoding data, … We have tested the framework using simulated data sets, but it would be wonderful to see it applied in real cases…!
So, I invite you to have a look at our paper and share your ideas and thoughts!
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