Conclusion
Overall, these data have both regional and general significance.
Regionally, they provide explanations for changing community composition
and trait expression in Himalayan rivers. More generally, they expand
the understanding of how trait distributions and assemblages are the
result of a complex interplay between trait filtering along
environmental gradients coupled with evolutionary processes. There
exists a clear phylogenetic imprint that contributes to contemporary
species-trait–habitat relations in river bird assemblages in the
Himalayan Mountains. In the light of large—scale human alterations to
the biosphere, represented particularly strongly in rivers, models of
trait-environment relationships like ours can be instrumental in
predicting future range shifts in the distribution of species and
traits. Our study reiterates that the simultaneous assessment of
phylogenetic relatedness among co-existing species with trait-habitat
analyses can benefit the understanding of species assembly patterns
across regional fauna.