mFD: General Workflow

Camille Magneville

2024-02-26

About this tutorial


This tutorial describes the basic workflow showing how to compute step by step functional diversity (FD) indices in a multidimensional space using mFD package. Other functions are available and their uses are illustrated in others tutorials.

DATA The dataset used to illustrate this tutorial is a fruits dataset based on 25 types of fruits (i.e. species) distributed in 10 fruits baskets (i.e. assemblages). Each fruit is characterized by five traits values summarized in the following table:


Trait name Trait measurement Trait type Number of classes Classes code Unit
Size Maximal diameter Ordinal 5 0-1 ; 1-3 ; 3-5 ; 5-10 ; 10-20 cm
Plant Growth form Categorical 4 tree; shrub; vine; forb NA
Climate Climatic niche Ordinal 3 temperate ; subtropical ; tropical NA
Seed Seed type Ordinal 3 none ; pip ; pit NA
Sugar Sugar Continuous NA NA g/kg


Overview of the functional framework


The use of the mFD package is based on two datasets:

# Load data:
data("fruits_traits", package = "mFD")

# Remove fuzzy traits in this tutorial:
fruits_traits <- fruits_traits[ , -c(6:8)]

# Display the table:
knitr::kable(head(fruits_traits),
             caption = "Species x traits data frame")
Species x traits data frame
Size Plant Climate Seed Sugar
apple 5-10cm tree temperate pip 103.9
apricot 3-5cm tree temperate pit 92.4
banana 10-20cm tree tropical none 122.3
currant 0-1cm shrub temperate pip 73.7
blackberry 1-3cm shrub temperate pip 48.8
blueberry 0-1cm forb temperate pip 100.0


# Load data:
data("baskets_fruits_weights", package = "mFD")

# Display the table:
knitr::kable(as.data.frame(baskets_fruits_weights[1:6, 1:6]), 
      centering = TRUE,
      caption = "Species x assemblages matrix based on the **fruits** dataset")
Species x assemblages matrix based on the fruits dataset
apple apricot banana currant blackberry blueberry
basket_1 400 0 100 0 0 0
basket_2 200 0 400 0 0 0
basket_3 200 0 500 0 0 0
basket_4 300 0 0 0 0 0
basket_5 200 0 0 0 0 0
basket_6 100 0 200 0 0 0


This tutorial will guide you through the main framework, illustrated in the flowchart below, step by step.


Basic framework of the mFD package

Basic framework of the mFD package


1. Know your data


1.1. What types of traits am I using?


The first thing to do before starting analyses is to know your data. To do so, you must be able to characterize the traits you are using (i.e. tell the package what type of traits you are using). That is why mFD package needs a data frame summarizing the type of each trait (i.e. each column of the fruits_traits data frame).

NB You need to set up a data frame with the same columns names as the below example and traits names need to be in the same order as in the fruits_traits data frame:

# Load data:
data("fruits_traits_cat", package = "mFD")

# Remove fuzzy traits in this tutorial:
fruits_traits_cat <- fruits_traits_cat[-c(6:8), ]
# Thus remove the "fuzzy_name" column:
fruits_traits_cat <- fruits_traits_cat[ , -3]

# Display the table:
knitr::kable(head(fruits_traits_cat), 
             caption = "Traits types based on **fruits & baskets** dataset")
Traits types based on fruits & baskets dataset
trait_name trait_type
Size O
Plant N
Climate O
Seed O
Sugar Q

The first column contains traits name. The second column contains traits type following this code:

You can add a third column if your dataset use fuzzy traits (then the third column summarizes to which fuzzy trait belongs each column that refers to a fuzzy trait) or if you want to give weight to each traits (then the third column summarizes traits weights).


NOTE The traits types dataframe thus has: two columns if no fuzzy traits and no weight given to traits (columns names: trait_name and trait_type) ; three columns if fuzzy traits (columns names: trait_name,trait_type and fuzzy_name) or if no fuzzy traits and weight given to traits (columns names: trait_name,trait_type and trait_weight). See the first part of the Compute Functional Diversity Hill Indices to see how the fruits_traits and fruits_traits_cat look like with fuzzy traits.


1.2. Summarize my traits


The mFD package helps you to summarize your data using two distinct functions: mFD::sp.tr.summary() and mFD::asb.sp.summary().

The function mFD::sp.tr.summary() summarizes the fruits_traits dataframe and returns a list gathering several tables and lists:


USAGE

# Species traits summary:
fruits_traits_summ <- mFD::sp.tr.summary(
  tr_cat     = fruits_traits_cat,   
  sp_tr      = fruits_traits, 
  stop_if_NA = TRUE)
fruits_traits_summ$"tr_types"                     # Traits types 
## $Size
## [1] "ordered" "factor" 
## 
## $Plant
## [1] "factor"
## 
## $Climate
## [1] "ordered" "factor" 
## 
## $Seed
## [1] "ordered" "factor" 
## 
## $Sugar
## [1] "numeric"


fruits_traits_summ$"mod_list"                     # Traits types for non-continuous and non-fuzzy traits
## $Size
## [1] 5-10cm  3-5cm   10-20cm 0-1cm   1-3cm  
## Levels: 0-1cm < 1-3cm < 3-5cm < 5-10cm < 10-20cm
## 
## $Plant
## [1] tree  shrub forb  vine 
## Levels: forb shrub tree vine
## 
## $Climate
## [1] temperate   tropical    subtropical
## Levels: temperate < subtropical < tropical
## 
## $Seed
## [1] pip  pit  none
## Levels: none < pip < pit
## 
## $Sugar
##  [1] 103.9  92.4 122.3  73.7  48.8 100.0 128.2 162.5  73.1  89.9  25.0  16.9
## [13] 152.3 136.6  78.6  91.4 112.0  83.9  97.5  98.5  99.2  44.0  48.9 105.8
## [25]  81.2


1.3. Summarize my assemblages


The second function helping you to summarize your data in the mFD package is mFD::asb.sp.summary(). It summarizes the baskets_fruits_weights matrix and returns a list gathering a matrix, a list and several vectors:


USAGE

# Summary of the assemblages * species dataframe:
asb_sp_fruits_summ <- mFD::asb.sp.summary(asb_sp_w = baskets_fruits_weights)


head(asb_sp_fruits_summ$"asb_sp_occ", 3)        # Species occurrences for the first 3 assemblages
##          apple apricot banana currant blackberry blueberry cherry grape
## basket_1     1       0      1       0          0         0      1     0
## basket_2     1       0      1       0          0         0      1     0
## basket_3     1       0      1       0          0         0      1     0
##          grapefruit kiwifruit lemon lime litchi mango melon orange
## basket_1          0         0     1    0      0     0     1      0
## basket_2          0         0     1    0      0     0     1      0
## basket_3          0         0     1    0      0     0     1      0
##          passion_fruit peach pear pineapple plum raspberry strawberry tangerine
## basket_1             1     0    1         0    0         0          1         0
## basket_2             1     0    1         0    0         0          1         0
## basket_3             1     0    1         0    0         0          1         0
##          water_melon
## basket_1           0
## basket_2           0
## basket_3           0
asb_sp_fruits_occ <- asb_sp_fruits_summ$"asb_sp_occ"


asb_sp_fruits_summ$"sp_tot_w"              # Species total biomass in all assemblages
##         apple       apricot        banana       currant    blackberry 
##          1850           200          1400           300           400 
##     blueberry        cherry         grape    grapefruit     kiwifruit 
##           300           950           900           300           400 
##         lemon          lime        litchi         mango         melon 
##          1200           400           300           700          1500 
##        orange passion_fruit         peach          pear     pineapple 
##           900           300           600          1900          1000 
##          plum     raspberry    strawberry     tangerine   water_melon 
##           550           900          1650           300           800


asb_sp_fruits_summ$"asb_tot_w"             # Total biomass per assemblage
##  basket_1  basket_2  basket_3  basket_4  basket_5  basket_6  basket_7  basket_8 
##      2000      2000      2000      2000      2000      2000      2000      2000 
##  basket_9 basket_10 
##      2000      2000


asb_sp_fruits_summ$"asb_sp_richn"           # Species richness per assemblage
##  basket_1  basket_2  basket_3  basket_4  basket_5  basket_6  basket_7  basket_8 
##         8         8         8         8         8         8         8         8 
##  basket_9 basket_10 
##         8         8


asb_sp_fruits_summ$"asb_sp_nm"[[1]]             # Names of species present in the first assemblage
##         apple        banana        cherry         lemon         melon 
##             1             1             1             1             1 
## passion_fruit          pear    strawberry 
##             1             1             1



2. Gathering species into functional entities


If you have many species described by few categorical and ordinal traits only, then you might want to group them into Functional Entities (FE), i.e groups of species with same trait values when species are described with categorical and/or ordinal traits. It is particularly useful when using large datasets with “functionally similar” species.

In this tutorial, this function is not illustrated (FE for the fruits dataset have a single species) and thus functional diversity indices based on FE are not computed. You can have a look to the Compute Functional Diversity Indices based on Functional Entities tutorial for further analysis using FE.


mFD also allows the user to compute FD indices based on Functional Entities (FEs). Computed indices are Functional Redundancy (FRed), Functional OverRedundancy (FORed) and Functional Vulnerability (FVuln) (Mouillot et al. 2014). The fruits & baskets example does not allow to compute FEs, thus FD indices based on FEs can not be compute. Check the Compute functional diversity indices based on Functional Entities tutorial to see how to compute them.


3. Computing distances between species based on functional traits


The next step toward the computation of functional diversity indices is to estimate functional traits-based distances between species in order to build the functional space in which indices will be computed.

To compute trait-based distances, we will use the mFD::funct.dist() function which includes the following arguments:


USAGE

sp_dist_fruits <- mFD::funct.dist(
  sp_tr         = fruits_traits,
  tr_cat        = fruits_traits_cat,
  metric        = "gower",
  scale_euclid  = "scale_center",
  ordinal_var   = "classic",
  weight_type   = "equal",
  stop_if_NA    = TRUE)


NB If your data gather a high number of species and/or traits, this function might take time to run (and you might have memory issues).


This function returns a dist object with traits-based distances between all pairs of species:

round(sp_dist_fruits, 3)                 # Output of the function mFD::funct.dist()
##               apple apricot banana currant blackberry blueberry cherry grape
## apricot       0.166                                                         
## banana        0.375   0.541                                                 
## currant       0.391   0.426  0.767                                          
## blackberry    0.376   0.410  0.751   0.084                                  
## blueberry     0.355   0.410  0.731   0.236      0.320                       
## cherry        0.233   0.099  0.558   0.425      0.409     0.389             
## grape         0.380   0.446  0.705   0.372      0.356     0.336  0.347      
## grapefruit    0.192   0.327  0.268   0.501      0.483     0.537  0.426 0.573
## kiwifruit     0.219   0.353  0.595   0.372      0.356     0.364  0.453 0.200
## lemon         0.208   0.343  0.384   0.517      0.433     0.553  0.442 0.589
## lime          0.370   0.404  0.345   0.578      0.494     0.614  0.503 0.650
## litchi        0.466   0.332  0.391   0.658      0.642     0.622  0.233 0.514
## mango         0.395   0.361  0.220   0.786      0.771     0.750  0.362 0.686
## melon         0.285   0.419  0.560   0.407      0.391     0.229  0.518 0.465
## orange        0.117   0.251  0.292   0.474      0.459     0.462  0.351 0.498
## passion_fruit 0.461   0.527  0.414   0.553      0.537     0.516  0.572 0.319
## peach         0.127   0.062  0.503   0.464      0.448     0.472  0.161 0.508
## pear          0.009   0.157  0.384   0.383      0.367     0.353  0.242 0.389
## pineapple     0.557   0.708  0.233   0.734      0.718     0.502  0.791 0.738
## plum          0.156   0.009  0.532   0.435      0.419     0.401  0.090 0.437
## raspberry     0.382   0.416  0.758   0.091      0.007     0.327  0.416 0.363
## strawberry    0.376   0.410  0.751   0.284      0.200     0.120  0.409 0.356
## tangerine     0.153   0.218  0.323   0.444      0.428     0.408  0.281 0.428
## water_melon   0.281   0.415  0.556   0.410      0.395     0.226  0.515 0.462
##               grapefruit kiwifruit lemon  lime litchi mango melon orange
## apricot                                                                 
## banana                                                                  
## currant                                                                 
## blackberry                                                              
## blueberry                                                               
## cherry                                                                  
## grape                                                                   
## grapefruit                                                              
## kiwifruit          0.373                                                
## lemon              0.116     0.389                                      
## lime               0.277     0.550 0.161                                
## litchi             0.459     0.686 0.475 0.336                          
## mango              0.287     0.614 0.403 0.364  0.172                   
## melon              0.308     0.266 0.424 0.585  0.751 0.580             
## orange             0.075     0.302 0.091 0.252  0.384 0.312 0.368       
## passion_fruit      0.453     0.280 0.470 0.331  0.405 0.434 0.546  0.378
## peach              0.265     0.308 0.281 0.442  0.394 0.322 0.357  0.210
## pear               0.184     0.210 0.200 0.361  0.475 0.404 0.276  0.108
## pineapple          0.435     0.562 0.551 0.512  0.624 0.452 0.327  0.460
## plum               0.336     0.363 0.352 0.413  0.323 0.351 0.428  0.261
## raspberry          0.490     0.363 0.426 0.487  0.649 0.777 0.398  0.465
## strawberry         0.483     0.356 0.433 0.494  0.642 0.770 0.191  0.458
## tangerine          0.145     0.372 0.161 0.222  0.314 0.342 0.437  0.070
## water_melon        0.311     0.262 0.427 0.588  0.748 0.576 0.004  0.364
##               passion_fruit peach  pear pineapple  plum raspberry strawberry
## apricot                                                                     
## banana                                                                      
## currant                                                                     
## blackberry                                                                  
## blueberry                                                                   
## cherry                                                                      
## grape                                                                       
## grapefruit                                                                  
## kiwifruit                                                                   
## lemon                                                                       
## lime                                                                        
## litchi                                                                      
## mango                                                                       
## melon                                                                       
## orange                                                                      
## passion_fruit                                                               
## peach                 0.589                                                 
## pear                  0.470 0.119                                           
## pineapple             0.419 0.670 0.551                                     
## plum                  0.518 0.071 0.152     0.701                           
## raspberry             0.543 0.455 0.373     0.725 0.426                     
## strawberry            0.537 0.448 0.367     0.518 0.419     0.207           
## tangerine             0.309 0.280 0.161     0.510 0.209     0.435      0.428
## water_melon           0.542 0.354 0.272     0.324 0.425     0.401      0.194
##               tangerine
## apricot                
## banana                 
## currant                
## blackberry             
## blueberry              
## cherry                 
## grape                  
## grapefruit             
## kiwifruit              
## lemon                  
## lime                   
## litchi                 
## mango                  
## melon                  
## orange                 
## passion_fruit          
## peach                  
## pear                   
## pineapple              
## plum                   
## raspberry              
## strawberry             
## tangerine              
## water_melon       0.434


4. Computing functional spaces & their quality


4.1. Compute multimensional functional spaces and assess their quality


In order to generate a multidimensional space in which functional diversity indices are computed (Mouillot et al. 2013, we will perform a PCoA using the trait-based distances (and if required a functional dendrogram). mFD evaluates the quality of PCoA-based multidimensional spaces according to the deviation between trait-based distances and distances in the functional space (extension of Maire et al. (2015) framework). For that, we will use the mFD::quality.fspaces() function:


USAGE

fspaces_quality_fruits <- mFD::quality.fspaces(
  sp_dist             = sp_dist_fruits,
  maxdim_pcoa         = 10,
  deviation_weighting = "absolute",
  fdist_scaling       = FALSE,
  fdendro             = "average")

NOTE The combination of deviation_weighting and fdist_scaling arguments leads to four possible quality metrics: mad, rmsd, mad_scaled and rmsd_scaled


This function returns a list various objects:


round(fspaces_quality_fruits$"quality_fspaces", 3)            # Quality metrics of spaces
##                mad
## pcoa_1d      0.150
## pcoa_2d      0.073
## pcoa_3d      0.047
## pcoa_4d      0.040
## pcoa_5d      0.049
## pcoa_6d      0.055
## pcoa_7d      0.060
## pcoa_8d      0.064
## pcoa_9d      0.065
## pcoa_10d     0.065
## tree_average 0.082



NOTE The space with the best quality has the lowest quality metric. Here, thanks to mad values, we can see that the 4D space is the best one. That is why the following of this tutorial will use this multidimensional space.


4.2. Illustrating the quality of the selected functional spaces


With the mFD package, it is possible to illustrate the quality of PCoA-based multidimensional spaces according to deviation between trait-based distances and distances in the functional space. For that, we use the mFD::quality.fspace.plot() function with the following arguments:


USAGE

mFD::quality.fspaces.plot(
  fspaces_quality            = fspaces_quality_fruits,
  quality_metric             = "mad",
  fspaces_plot               = c("tree_average", "pcoa_2d", "pcoa_3d", 
                                 "pcoa_4d", "pcoa_5d", "pcoa_6d"),
  name_file                  = NULL,
  range_dist                 = NULL,
  range_dev                  = NULL,
  range_qdev                 = NULL,
  gradient_deviation         = c(neg = "darkblue", nul = "grey80", pos = "darkred"),
  gradient_deviation_quality = c(low = "yellow", high = "red"),
  x_lab                      = "Trait-based distance")


This function generates a figure with three panels (in rows) for each selected functional space (in columns). Each column represents a functional space, the value of the quality metric is written on the top of each column. The x-axis of all panels represents trait-based distances. The y-axis is different for each row:


mFD::quality.fspaces.plot(
  fspaces_quality            = fspaces_quality_fruits,
  quality_metric             = "mad",
  fspaces_plot               = c("tree_average", "pcoa_2d", "pcoa_3d",
                                 "pcoa_4d", "pcoa_5d", "pcoa_6d"),
  name_file                  = NULL,
  range_dist                 = NULL,
  range_dev                  = NULL,
  range_qdev                 = NULL,
  gradient_deviation         = c(neg = "darkblue", nul = "grey80", pos = "darkred"),
  gradient_deviation_quality = c(low = "yellow", high = "red"),
  x_lab                      = "Trait-based distance")


For the 2D space, on the top row there are a lot of points below the 1:1 lines, meaning that distances are overestimated in this multidimensional space. Looking at panels, we can see that the 4D space is the one in which points are the closest to the 1:1 line on the top row,and the closest to the x-axis for the two bottom rows, which reflects a better quality compared to other functional spaces / dendrogram. For the dendrogram, we can see on the top row that species pairs arrange in horizontal lines, meaning that different trait-based distances have then the same cophenetic distance on the dendrogram.


NOTE To know more and better understand how to interpret quality of functional spaces, you should read the Compute and Interpret Quality of Functional Space tutorial.


5. Test correlation between functional axes and traits


mFD allows to test for correlations between traits and functional axes and then illustrate possible correlations. For continuous traits, a linear model is computed and r2 and associated p-value are returned. For non-continuous traits, a Kruskal-Wallis test is computed and eta2 statistic is returned. The function mFD::traits.faxes.cor() allows to test and plot correlation and needs the following arguments:

sp_faxes_coord_fruits <- fspaces_quality_fruits$"details_fspaces"$"sp_pc_coord"


mFD::traits.faxes.cor works as follows:

USAGE

fruits_tr_faxes <- mFD::traits.faxes.cor(
  sp_tr          = fruits_traits, 
  sp_faxes_coord = sp_faxes_coord_fruits[ , c("PC1", "PC2", "PC3", "PC4")], 
  plot           = TRUE)


We can print only traits with significant effect on position along one of the axis and look at the plots:


# Print traits with significant effect:
fruits_tr_faxes$"tr_faxes_stat"[which(fruits_tr_faxes$"tr_faxes_stat"$"p.value" < 0.05), ]
##      trait axis           test stat value p.value
## 1     Size  PC1 Kruskal-Wallis eta2 0.308  0.0377
## 3     Size  PC3 Kruskal-Wallis eta2 0.326  0.0325
## 5    Plant  PC1 Kruskal-Wallis eta2 0.471  0.0049
## 6    Plant  PC2 Kruskal-Wallis eta2 0.382  0.0116
## 8    Plant  PC4 Kruskal-Wallis eta2 0.264  0.0360
## 9  Climate  PC1 Kruskal-Wallis eta2 0.731  0.0001
## 13    Seed  PC1 Kruskal-Wallis eta2 0.201  0.0402
## 14    Seed  PC2 Kruskal-Wallis eta2 0.593  0.0005
## 20   Sugar  PC4   Linear Model   r2 0.682  0.0000
# Return plots:
fruits_tr_faxes$"tr_faxes_plot"


We can thus see that PC1 is mostly driven by Climate (temperate on the left and tropical on the right) and Plant Type (forb & shrub on the left vs tree & vine on the right) and Size (large fruits on the right) with weaker influence of Seed (eta2 < 0.25). Then, PC2 is mostly driven by Seed (no seed on the left and pit seed on the right) with weaker influence of Plant Type. PC3 is driven by only one trait, Size. And finally PC4 is mostly driven by Sugar (high sugar content on the right and low sugar content on the left) with a weaker influence of Plant Type.


6. Plot functional space


Once the user has selected the dimensionality of the functional space, mFD allows you to plot the given multidimensional functional space and the position of species in all 2-dimensions spaces made by pairs of axes.


The mFD::funct.space.plot() function allows to illustrate the position of all species along pairs of space axes.


This function allows to plot with many possibilities to change colors/shapes of each plotted element. Here are listed the main arguments:


sp_faxes_coord_fruits <- fspaces_quality_fruits$"details_fspaces"$"sp_pc_coord"



Here are the plots for the fruits & baskets dataset for the first four PCoA axis:


USAGE

big_plot <- mFD::funct.space.plot(
  sp_faxes_coord  = sp_faxes_coord_fruits[ , c("PC1", "PC2", "PC3", "PC4")],
  faxes           = c("PC1", "PC2", "PC3", "PC4"),
  name_file       = NULL,
  faxes_nm        = NULL,
  range_faxes     = c(NA, NA),
  color_bg        = "grey95",
  color_pool      = "darkgreen",
  fill_pool       = "white",
  shape_pool      = 21,
  size_pool       = 1,
  plot_ch         = TRUE,
  color_ch        = "black",
  fill_ch         = "white",
  alpha_ch        = 0.5,
  plot_vertices   = TRUE,
  color_vert      = "blueviolet",
  fill_vert       = "blueviolet",
  shape_vert      = 23,
  size_vert       = 1,
  plot_sp_nm      = NULL,
  nm_size         = 3,
  nm_color        = "black",
  nm_fontface     = "plain",
  check_input     = TRUE)


Here, the convex-hull of the species pool is plotted in white and axis have the same range to get rid of bias based on different axis scales. Species beign vertices of the 4D convex hull are in purple.


Here are the plots for the fruits & baskets dataset for the first ten PCoA axis:


big_plot <- mFD::funct.space.plot(
  sp_faxes_coord  = sp_faxes_coord_fruits,
  faxes           = NULL,
  name_file       = NULL,
  faxes_nm        = NULL,
  range_faxes     = c(NA, NA),
  color_bg        = "grey95",
  color_pool      = "darkgreen",
  fill_pool       = "white",
  shape_pool      = 21,
  size_pool       = 1,
  plot_ch         = TRUE,
  color_ch        = "black",
  fill_ch         = "white",
  alpha_ch        = 0.5,
  plot_vertices   = TRUE,
  color_vert      = "blueviolet",
  fill_vert       = "blueviolet",
  shape_vert      = 23,
  size_vert       = 1,
  plot_sp_nm      = NULL,
  nm_size         = 3,
  nm_color        = "black",
  nm_fontface     = "plain",
  check_input     = TRUE)

# Plot the graph with all pairs of axes:
big_plot$patchwork


Here, all the species are vertices compared with the last example with only four dimensions.


7. Compute functional diversity indices & plot them


7.1. Functional alpha diversity indices in a multidimensional space


The mFD::alpha.fd.multidim() function allows computing many alpha FD indices:


USAGE

alpha_fd_indices_fruits <- mFD::alpha.fd.multidim(
  sp_faxes_coord   = sp_faxes_coord_fruits[ , c("PC1", "PC2", "PC3", "PC4")],
  asb_sp_w         = baskets_fruits_weights,
  ind_vect         = c("fdis", "fmpd", "fnnd", "feve", "fric", "fdiv", "fori", 
                       "fspe", "fide"),
  scaling          = TRUE,
  check_input      = TRUE,
  details_returned = TRUE)
## basket_1 done 10%
## basket_2 done 20%
## basket_3 done 30%
## basket_4 done 40%
## basket_5 done 50%
## basket_6 done 60%
## basket_7 done 70%
## basket_8 done 80%
## basket_9 done 90%
## basket_10 done 100%


The arguments and their use are listed below:


NB Use lowercase letters to enter FD indices names


The function has two main outputs:

fd_ind_values_fruits <- alpha_fd_indices_fruits$"functional_diversity_indices"
fd_ind_values_fruits
##           sp_richn      fdis      fmpd      fnnd     feve        fric      fdiv
## basket_1         8 0.4763773 0.6255537 0.4050890 0.565326 0.162830681 0.5514453
## basket_2         8 0.7207823 0.7204459 0.6604092 0.754999 0.162830681 0.8064809
## basket_3         8 0.7416008 0.7274367 0.6748312 0.805534 0.162830681 0.8089535
## basket_4         8 0.2958614 0.3426258 0.2258304 0.759802 0.007880372 0.6080409
## basket_5         8 0.3673992 0.3782650 0.2922436 0.843120 0.007880372 0.7288912
## basket_6         8 0.8001980 0.7838356 0.7295674 0.814829 0.147936148 0.8937934
## basket_7         8 0.8121314 0.8092985 0.7566157 0.827061 0.147936148 0.8989094
## basket_8         8 0.4678159 0.5182996 0.3618776 0.566161 0.036480112 0.7113688
## basket_9         8 0.5577452 0.5566262 0.4563761 0.675735 0.036480112 0.7787237
## basket_10        8 0.5505783 0.5501381 0.4118548 0.660085 0.025774304 0.7741681
##                fori      fspe    fide_PC1     fide_PC2    fide_PC3     fide_PC4
## basket_1  0.2024008 0.4127138 -0.01473662 -0.009461738 -0.05670043 -0.001823969
## basket_2  0.2788762 0.5781232  0.01887361 -0.061601373 -0.04427402  0.021249327
## basket_3  0.3067367 0.5888104  0.04724418 -0.056571400 -0.03631846  0.018045257
## basket_4  0.1766279 0.3106937  0.03994897  0.052581211 -0.08413271 -0.001343112
## basket_5  0.2165945 0.3488358  0.02349573  0.039069220 -0.08187248 -0.010262902
## basket_6  0.6071369 0.7930809  0.24320913 -0.114434642  0.01394977  0.025500282
## basket_7  0.4841824 0.7443406  0.13341179 -0.183609095 -0.01782549  0.021494300
## basket_8  0.2538185 0.6363814 -0.24497368  0.036194656  0.04748935 -0.038827673
## basket_9  0.3126927 0.6309078 -0.21021559  0.029339706  0.05516746 -0.041392184
## basket_10 0.1799705 0.4587432 -0.05375867 -0.005743348 -0.05649324  0.041191011


details_list_fruits <- alpha_fd_indices_fruits$"details"


Then, you can plot functional indices using the mFD::alpha.multidim.plot() function as follows:


USAGE

plots_alpha <- mFD::alpha.multidim.plot(
  output_alpha_fd_multidim = alpha_fd_indices_fruits,
  plot_asb_nm              = c("basket_1", "basket_5"),
  ind_nm                   = c("fdis", "fide", "fnnd", "feve", "fric", 
                               "fdiv", "fori", "fspe"),
  faxes                    = NULL,
  faxes_nm                 = NULL,
  range_faxes              = c(NA, NA),
  color_bg                 = "grey95",
  shape_sp                 = c(pool = 3, asb1 = 21, asb2 = 21),
  size_sp                  = c(pool = 0.7, asb1 = 1, asb2 = 1),
  color_sp                 = c(pool = "grey50", asb1 = "#1F968BFF", asb2 = "#DCE319FF"),
  color_vert               = c(pool = "grey50", asb1 = "#1F968BFF", asb2 = "#DCE319FF"),
  fill_sp                  = c(pool = NA, asb1 = "#1F968BFF", asb2 = "#DCE319FF"),
  fill_vert                = c(pool = NA, asb1 = "#1F968BFF", asb2 = "#DCE319FF"),
  color_ch                 = c(pool = NA, asb1 = "#1F968BFF", asb2 = "#DCE319FF"),
  fill_ch                  = c(pool = "white", asb1 = "#1F968BFF", asb2 = "#DCE319FF"),
  alpha_ch                 = c(pool = 1, asb1 = 0.3, asb2 = 0.3),
  shape_centroid_fdis      = c(asb1 = 22,  asb2 = 24),
  shape_centroid_fdiv      = c(asb1 = 22,  asb2 = 24),
  shape_centroid_fspe      = 23,
  color_centroid_fspe      = "black",
  size_sp_nm               = 3, 
  color_sp_nm              = "black",
  plot_sp_nm               = NULL,
  fontface_sp_nm           = "plain",
  save_file                = FALSE,
  check_input              = TRUE) 


As you can see, this function has a lot of arguments: most of them are graphical arguments allowing the user to chose colors, shapes, sizes, scales, etc. This tutorial only presents main arguments. To learn about the use of graphical arguments, check the function help file. The main arguments of this function are listed below:


Then, using these arguments, here are the output plots for the fruits & baskets dataset:


plots_alpha$"fric"$"patchwork"


plots_alpha$"fdiv"$"patchwork"


plots_alpha$"fspe"$"patchwork"


plots_alpha$"fdis"$"patchwork"


plots_alpha$"fide"$"patchwork"


plots_alpha$"feve"$"patchwork"


plots_alpha$"fori"$"patchwork"

plots_alpha$"fnnd"$"patchwork"


7.2. Functional beta diversity indices based on multidimensional space


NOTE: Some Mac OS X 10.15 may encounter some issues with the beta_*() functions.


mFD package allows you to compute beta diversity indices for each assemblage pairs following Villeger et al. 2013. For that we will use the mFD::beta.fd.multidim() function.


NOTE This function can compute two families of functional beta diversity indices, either Jaccard or Sorensen.


In this example, we will use Jaccard index. For each assemblages pair, the dissimilarity index is decomposed into two additive components: turnover and nestedness-resultant. NB The turnover component is the highest if there is no shared traits combination between the two assemblages. The nestedness component is the highest if one assemblage hosts a small subset of the functional strategies present in the other.


The mFD::beta.fd.multidim() function has the main following arguments:


USAGE

beta_fd_indices_fruits <- mFD::beta.fd.multidim(
      sp_faxes_coord   = sp_faxes_coord_fruits[ , c("PC1", "PC2", "PC3", "PC4")],
      asb_sp_occ       = asb_sp_fruits_occ,
      check_input      = TRUE,
      beta_family      = c("Jaccard"),
      details_returned = TRUE)



The function returns a list containing:



Then, the package allows the user to illustrate functional beta-diversity indices for a pair of assemblages in a multidimensional space using the mFD::beta.multidim.plot() function. The output of this function is a figure showing the overlap between convex hulls shaping each of the two species assemblages.


The plotting function has a large number of arguments, allowing the user to chose graphical options. Arguments are listed below:


USAGE

beta_plot_fruits <- mFD::beta.multidim.plot(
  output_beta_fd_multidim = beta_fd_indices_fruits,
  plot_asb_nm             = c("basket_1", "basket_4"),
  beta_family             = c("Jaccard"),
  plot_sp_nm              = c("apple", "lemon", "pear"),
  faxes                   = paste0("PC", 1:4),
  name_file               = NULL,
  faxes_nm                = NULL,
  range_faxes             = c(NA, NA),
  color_bg                = "grey95",
  shape_sp                = c("pool" = 3.0, asb1 = 22, asb2 = 21),
  size_sp                 = c("pool" = 0.8, asb1 =  1, asb2 =  1),
  color_sp                = c("pool" = "grey50", asb1 = "blue", asb2 = "red"),
  fill_sp                 = c("pool" = NA, asb1 = "white", asb2 = "white"),
  fill_vert               = c("pool" = NA, asb1 = "blue", asb2 = "red"),
  color_ch                = c("pool" = NA, asb1 = "blue", asb2 = "red"),
  fill_ch                 = c("pool" = "white", asb1 = "blue", asb2 = "red"),
  alpha_ch                = c("pool" = 1, asb1 = 0.3, asb2 = 0.3),
  nm_size                 = 3,
  nm_color                = "black",
  nm_fontface             = "plain",
  check_input             = TRUE)



Then, the function returns each graph for each functional axes combination and also a multipanel plot with all combinations of axes and the graph caption.

For each assemblage, the associated convex hull is plotted in a different colour and indices values are printed on the right corner of the plot. Vertices of the convex hull of a given assemblage can be plotted with a different symbol such as in this example. Species of all assemblages are plotted with gray cross and the associated convex hull is plotted in white.


References