SYNCSA

Is an application program designed for the analysis of metacommunities based on functional traits and phylogeny of the community components. The main challenge in trait-based analysis is that it usually requires the consideration of three data matrices: one describing species or other operational taxonomic units (OTUs) by a set of traits (characters), another describing communities by the performance of the species or OTUs, and a third one describing the community sites by ecosystem factors or effects. In the new version of SYNCSA now available a fourth matrix with phylogenetic information of the species or OTUs can be considered. SYNCSA can perform an integrated analysis of these phenotypic, phylogenetic, community and environmental matrices. Different optimization algorithms are available to select trait subsets and number of functional types maximizing matrix correlations between trait-convergence (TCAP) and trait-divergence assembly patterns (TDAP), phylogenetic signal and ecosystem variables. See related publications below.

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Related publications:

Pillar, V.D. & Duarte, L.d.S. 2010. A framework for metacommunity analysis of phylogenetic structure. Ecology Letters 13: 587-596. DOI PDF

Pillar, V.D., Duarte, L.d.S., Sosinski, E.E. & Joner, F. 2009. Discriminating trait-convergence and trait-divergence assembly patterns in ecological community gradients. Journal of Vegetation Science 20: 334-348. DOI PDF

Pillar, V.D. & E.E. Sosinski Jr. 2003. An improved method for searching plant functional types by numerical analysis. Journal of Vegetation Science 14: 323-332. DOI PDF

Pillar, V.D. 1999. On the identification of optimal plant functional types. Journal of Vegetation Science 10: 631-640. PDF

Pillar, V.D. & L. Orlóci. 1993. Taxonomy and perception in vegetation analysis. Coenoses 8: 53-66. PDF

Pillar, V.D. & L. Orlóci. 1993. Character-Based Community Analysis: The Theory and an Application Program. SPB Academic Publishing, The Hague. 270 p. PDF