High‐resolution 3D forest structure explains ecomorphological trait variation in assemblages of saproxylic beetles

2022

1. Climate, topography and the 3D structure of forests are major drivers affecting local species communities. However, little is known about how the specific functional traits of saproxylic (wood-living) beetles, involved in the recycling of wood, might be affected by those environmental characteristics. 2. Here, we combine ecological and morphological traits available for saproxylic beetles and airborne laser scanning (ALS) data in Bayesian trait-based joint species distribution models to study how traits drive the distributions of more than 230 species in temperate forests of Europe. 3. We found that elevation (as a proxy for temperature and precipitation) and the proportion of conifers p…