funspace: an R package to build, analyze and plot functional trait spaces

O_LIFunctional trait space analyses are pivotal to define species ecological strategies across the tree of life. Yet, there is no single application that streamlines the many sometimes-troublesome steps needed to build and analyze functional trait spaces. C_LIO_LITo fill this gap, we propose funspace, an R package to easily handle bivariate and multivariate (PCA-based) functional trait space analyses. The six functions that constitute the package can be grouped in three modules: Building and exploring, Mapping, and Plotting. C_LIO_LIThe building and exploring module defines the main features of a functional trait space (e.g., functional diversity metrics) by leveraging kernel density-based methods. The mapping module uses general additive models to map how a target variable distributes within a trait space. The plotting module provides many options for creating flexible and high-quality figures representing the outputs obtained from previous modules. We provide a worked example to demonstrate a complete funspace workflow. C_LIO_LIfunspace will provide researchers working with functional traits across the tree of life with an indispensable asset to easily explore: (i) the main features of any functional trait space, (ii) the relationship between a functional trait space and any other biological or non-biological factor that might contribute to shaping species functional diversity. C_LI