Aim: We investigated taxonomic and functional beta diversity of bird communities inhabiting Mediterranean olive groves subject to either intensive or low‐intensity management of the ground cover and located in landscapes with different degrees of complexity.Location: Andalusia, southern Spain.Methods: We partitioned taxonomic and functional beta diversity into its two additive components, turnover and nestedness. We also explored the contributions of single sites to overall beta diversity (LCBD) and separated the effects of species replacement (turnover) and richness difference (nestedness) in order to identify ecologically unique sites—keystone communities—within the metacommunity. In a further step, we employed abundance‐ and functional‐based indicator species analyses to characterize bird assemblages.Results: Taxonomic beta diversity increased with landscape complexity. Although both taxonomic and functional differences among assemblages were driven mainly by species replacement (regardless of management or landscape type), the contribution of trait replacement to the total functional beta diversity was much lower, suggesting that species performing similar functions replace each other between sites. There were no differences in LCBD between management types or categories of landscape complexity, but the contributions of sites to beta diversity decreased as the percentage cover of olive groves increased. Species richness was also important in explaining variation in LCBD as species‐poor sites tended to contribute the most to the local‐to‐regional beta diversity. However, some farms displayed high values of LCBD due to the existence of a high replacement component, indicating that some species recorded in these sites were scarce elsewhere. The indicator species analyses revealed that the woodchat shrike Lanius senator may constitute an excellent indicator of biodiversity in this agro‐forestry system.Main conclusions: Our results show that agricultural expansion promotes biotic homogenization and exemplify how the identification of both keystone species and communities can represent a powerful tool for the management of anthropized landscapes.

Fairy circles (FCs) are regular vegetation patterns found in drylands of Namibia and Western Australia. It is virtually unknown whether they are also present in other regions of the world and which environmental factors determine their distribution. We conducted a global systematic survey and found FC-like vegetation patterns in 263 sites from 15 countries and three continents, including the Sahel, Madagascar, and Middle-West Asia. FC-like vegetation patterns are found in environments characterized by a unique combination of soil (including low nutrient levels and high sand content) and climatic (arid regions with high temperatures and high precipitation seasonality) conditions. In addition to these factors, the presence of specific biological elements (termite nests) in certain regions also plays a role in the presence of these patterns. Furthermore, areas with FC-like vegetation patterns also showed more stable temporal productivity patterns than those of surrounding areas. Our study presents a global atlas of FCs and provides unique insights into the ecology and biogeography of these fascinating vegetation patterns.