The influence of time-of-day on estimates of taxonomic versus functional diversity in avian communities

ABSTRACT

Avian communities composed of a total of 79 species were sampled repeatedly at different times of day throughout the breeding season in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. Estimates of taxonomic diversity (species richness, Shannon index and probability of interspecific encounter) were highest in the morning, whereas estimates of functional diversity (functional richness, evenness, Rao’s entropy and mean distinctiveness) did not vary significantly throughout the day. These results suggest that estimates of taxonomic diversity in avian communities are biased by time-of-day, but measures of functional diversity may be more robust to such bias.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for fruitful discussions of the manuscript among members of the Walters Lab. We thank the reviewers and the editorial board for helping us to improve the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor corrections. These changes do not affect the academic content of the article

Additional information

Funding

This work was possible thanks to the support of the Fulbright Graduate Student Program and the Fulbright Office in Ukraine, as well as Old Dominion University (Department of Biological Sciences and International Student Advisory Board). The field work was supported by an IdeaWild grant.