Background: There is an increasing demand for databases including species trait information for biodiversity and community ecology studies. The existence of trait databases is useful for comparative studies within taxa or geographical regions, but there is low availability of databases for certain organisms. Here we present an open access functional trait database for spiders from Macaronesia and the Iberian Peninsula, recording several morphological and ecological traits related to the species life histories, microhabitat and trophic preferences. New information We present a database that includes 12 biological traits for 506 spider species present in natural forests of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) and three Macaronesian archipelagoes (Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands). The functional trait database consists of two sections: 1. individual-level data for six morphological traits (total body size, prosoma length, prosoma width, prosoma height, tibia I length and fang length), based on direct measurements of 2844 specimens of all spider species; and 2. species-level aggregate data for 12 traits (same 6 morphological traits as in the previous section plus dispersal ability, vertical stratification, circadian activity, foraging strategy, trophic specialization and colonization status), based on either the average of the direct measurements or bibliographic searches. This functional trait database will serve as a data standard for currently ongoing analyses that require trait and functional diversity statistics.

Comparable data is essential to understand biodiversity patterns. While assemblage or community inventorying requires comprehensive sampling, monitoring focuses on as few components as possible to detect changes. Quantifying species, their evolutionary history, and the way they interact requires studying changes in taxonomic (TD), phylogenetic (PD) and functional diversity (FD). Here we propose a method for the optimization of sampling protocols for inventorying and monitoring assemblages or communities across these three diversity dimensions taking sampling costs into account. We used Iberian spiders and Amazonian bats as two case-studies. The optimal combination of methods for inventorying and monitoring required optimizing the accumulation curve of α-diversity and minimizing the difference between sampled and estimated β-diversity (bias), respectively. For Iberian spiders, the optimal combination for TD, PD and FD allowed sampling at least 50% of estimated diversity with 24 person-hours of fieldwork. The optimal combination of six person-hours allowed reaching a bias below 8% for all dimensions. For Amazonian bats, surveying all the 12 sites with mist-nets and 0 or 1 acoustic recorders was the optimal combination for almost all diversity types, resulting in >89% of the diversity and <10% bias with roughly a third of the cost. Only for phylogenetic α-diversity, the best solution was less clear and involved surveying both with mist nets and acoustic recorders. The widespread use of optimized and standardized sampling protocols and regular repetition in time will radically improve global inventory and monitoring of biodiversity. We strongly advocate for the global adoption of sampling protocols for both inventory and monitoring of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity, PC has received funding from the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe research and innovation programmes under grant agreements No. 861924 (SustInAfrica) and 101081964 (BioMonitor4CAP) respectively. PC was also supported by the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (cE3c, https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/00329/2020) and the Global Change and Sustainability Institute (CHANGE, https://doi.org/10.54499/la/p/0121/ 2020). MA was supported by grant 485/2012 of the Organismo Aut\u00F3nomo de Parques Nacionales (Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentaci\u00F3n y Medio Ambiente). NMH was supported by the H2020-MSCA-IF-2015 Programme (BIODIV ISLAND-CONT project, Grant no. 706482). WDC is supported by \u2018Ayudas Maria Zambrano\u2019 (CA3/ RSUE/2021-00197), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Universities. Open access funded by Helsinki University Library. We thank all the collectors of past and present studies that contributed to the dataset used in this paper: Luis Carlos Crespo, Rui Carvalho, Alberto de Castro, Cristina Fr\u00EDas-L\u00F3pez, Pedro Humberto Castro, Clara Gaspar, Ana Filipa Gouveia, S\u00E9rgio Henriques, Eva de Mas, Paola Mazzuca, Elisa Mora, Jordi Moya, Vera Opatova, Luis Carlos Pereira, Enric Planas, Carles Ribera, Marcos Roca-Cusachs, Dolores Ruiz, Nikolaj Scharff, Jesper Schmidt, Israel Silva, Ricardo Silva, Pedro Sousa, Tam\u00E1s Sz\u00FCts, Vanina Tonzo, Jo\u00E3o D. Miguel, Adri\u00E0 L\u00F3pez-Baucells, Ricardo Rocha, Jorge M. Palmeirim, Isa\u00ED Castro, Bruna S. Xavier, Karen Mustin, Daniela Rato, Cledinaldo Marques, Cremilson Marques, Gustavo Silveira, Joandro Pandilha, Jackson Souza, Lu\u00EDs Miguel Rosalino, Ma\u00EDra S. M. Godoy, Renan M. Dias, Carlos E. L. Esb\u00E9rard and Cristina H. Adania

Background: There is an increasing demand for databases including species trait information for biodiversity and community ecology studies. The existence of trait databases is useful for comparative studies within taxa or geographical regions, but there is low availability of databases for certain organisms. Here we present an open access functional trait database for spiders from Macaronesia and the Iberian Peninsula, recording several morphological and ecological traits related to the species life histories, microhabitat and trophic preferences. New information We present a database that includes 12 biological traits for 506 spider species present in natural forests of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) and three Macaronesian archipelagoes (Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands). The functional trait database consists of two sections: 1. individual-level data for six morphological traits (total body size, prosoma length, prosoma width, prosoma height, tibia I length and fang length), based on direct measurements of 2844 specimens of all spider species; and 2. species-level aggregate data for 12 traits (same 6 morphological traits as in the previous section plus dispersal ability, vertical stratification, circadian activity, foraging strategy, trophic specialization and colonization status), based on either the average of the direct measurements or bibliographic searches. This functional trait database will serve as a data standard for currently ongoing analyses that require trait and functional diversity statistics.

© 2020 by the authors., Phylogenetic relatedness is a key diversity measure for the analysis and understanding of how species and communities evolve across time and space. Understanding the nonrandom loss of species with respect to phylogeny is also essential for better-informed conservation decisions. However, several factors are known to influence phylogenetic reconstruction and, ultimately, phylogenetic diversity metrics. In this study, we empirically tested how some of these factors (topological constraint, taxon sampling, genetic markers and calibration) affect phylogenetic resolution and uncertainty. We built a densely sampled, species-level phylogenetic tree for spiders, combining Sanger sequencing of species from local communities of two biogeographical regions (Iberian Peninsula and Macaronesia) with a taxon-rich backbone matrix of Genbank sequences and a topological constraint derived from recent phylogenomic studies. The resulting tree constitutes the most complete spider phylogeny to date, both in terms of terminals and background information, and may serve as a standard reference for the analysis of phylogenetic diversity patterns at the community level. We then used this tree to investigate how partial data affect phylogenetic reconstruction, phylogenetic diversity estimates and their rankings, and, ultimately, the ecological processes inferred for each community. We found that the incorporation of a single slowly evolving marker (28S) to the DNA barcode sequences from local communities, had the highest impact on tree topology, closely followed by the use of a backbone matrix. The increase in missing data resulting from combining partial sequences from local communities only had a moderate impact on the resulting trees, similar to the difference observed when using topological constraints. Our study further revealed substantial differences in both the phylogenetic structure and diversity rankings of the analyzed communities estimated from the different phylogenetic treatments, especially when using non-ultrametric trees (phylograms) instead of time-stamped trees (chronograms). Finally, we provide some recommendations on reconstructing phylogenetic trees to infer phylogenetic diversity within ecological studies., This study was supported by the project BIODIV ISLAND-CONT (Biodiversity drivers on islands and continents–706482) funded by Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2015) to the first author N.M.-H. The research was additionally funded by four other projects that provided the material collected: 1. ERA-Net Net-Biome research framework, financed through Portuguese FCT-NETBIOME grant 0003/2011 (P.A.V.B.). 2. ERA-Net Net-Biome financed through Canary Islands Government ACIISI grants SE-12/02, SE-12/03, SE-12/04 (B.C.E.), co-financed by FEDER. 3. FCT MACDIV–FCT-PTDC/BIABIC/0054/2014 (P.A.V.B.,B.C.E., P.C., I.R.A., F.R., O.S.P., A.V.). 4. Organismo Autónomo de Parques Nacionales Spain (OAPN #485/2012) (M.A.A.). Additional support was provided by grant 2017SGR83 from the Catalan Government to M.A.A. M.D. was supported by an APIF PhD fellowship from the University of Barcelona. J.L.-F. was supported by a Juan de
la Cierva Fellowship (FJCI-2015-23723). I.R.A. was funded by Portuguese funds through FCT–Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the Norma Transitória–DL57/2016/CP1375/CT0003. Open access funding provided by University of Helsinki., Peer reviewed

Background
There is an increasing demand for databases including species trait information for biodiversity and community ecology studies. The existence of trait databases is useful for comparative studies within taxa or geographical regions, but there is low availability of databases for certain organisms. Here we present an open access functional trait database for spiders from Macaronesia and the Iberian Peninsula, recording several morphological and ecological traits related to the species life histories, microhabitat and trophic preferences.
New information
We present a database that includes 12 biological traits for 506 spider species present in natural forests of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) and three Macaronesian archipelagoes (Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands). The functional trait database consists of two sections:
individual-level data for six morphological traits (total body size, prosoma length, prosoma width, prosoma height, tibia I length and fang length), based on direct measurements of 2844 specimens of all spider species; and species-level aggregate data for 12 traits (same 6 morphological traits as in the previous section plus dispersal ability, vertical stratification, circadian activity, foraging strategy, trophic specialization and colonization status), based on either the average of the direct measurements or bibliographic searches.
This functional trait database will serve as a data standard for currently ongoing analyses that require trait and functional diversity statistics., This study was supported by the project BIODIV ISLAND-CONT (Biodiversity drivers on islands and continents – 706482) funded by Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2015) to the first author NMH. Additional support was provided by grant 2017SGR83 from the Catalan Government to MA. PB and PC are supported by AZORESBIOPORTAL–PORBIOTA (ACORES-01-0145-FEDER-000072) for the development of Functional Traits for Azorean arthropods. MD is supported by an APIF PhD fellowship from the University of Barcelona. We also thank Rutger Vos and Martin Ramirez for their valuable comments that greatly helped to improve the quality of this paper., Peer reviewed