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Global trait–environment relationships of plant communities

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Authors

BRUELHEIDE Helge DENGLER Jürgen PURSCHKE Oliver LENOIR Jonathan JIMÉNEZ-ALFARO Borja HENNEKENS Stephan M. BOTTA-DUKÁT Zoltán CHYTRÝ Milan FIELD Richard JANSEN Florian KATTGE Jens PILLAR Valério D. SCHRODT Franziska MAHECHA Miguel D. PEET Robert K. SANDEL Brody VAN BODEGOM Peter ALTMAN Jan ALVAREZ-DÁVILA Esteban ARFIN KHAN Mohammed A. S. ATTORRE Fabio AUBIN Isabelle BARALOTO Christopher BARROSO Jorcely G. BAUTERS Marijn BERGMEIER Erwin BIURRUN Idoia BJORKMAN Anne D. BLONDER Benjamin ČARNI Andraž CAYUELA Luis ČERNÝ Tomáš CORNELISSEN J. Hans C. CRAVEN Dylan DAINESE Matteo DERROIRE Géraldine DE SANCTIS Michele DÍAZ Sandra DOLEŽAL Jiří FARFAN-RIOS William FELDPAUSCH Ted R. FENTON Nicole J. GARNIER Eric GUERIN Greg R. GUTIÉRREZ Alvaro G. HAIDER Sylvia HATTAB Tarek HENRY Greg HÉRAULT Bruno HIGUCHI Pedro HÖLZEL Norbert HOMEIER Jürgen JENTSCH Anke JÜRGENS Norbert KĄCKI Zygmunt KARGER Dirk N. KESSLER Michael KLEYER Michael KNOLLOVÁ Ilona KOROLYUK Andrey Y. KÜHN Ingolf LAUGHLIN Daniel C. LENS Frederic LOOS Jacqueline LOUAULT Frédérique LYUBENOVA Mariyana I. MALHI Yadvinder MARCENÓ Corrado MENCUCCINI Maurizio MÜLLER Jonas V. MUNZINGER Jérôme MYERS-SMITH Isla H. NEILL David A. NIINEMETS Ülo ORWIN Kate H. OZINGA Wim A. PENUELAS Josep PÉREZ-HAASE Aaron PETŘÍK Petr PHILLIPS Oliver L. PÄRTEL Meelis REICH Peter B. RÖMERMANN Christine RODRIGUES Arthur V. SABATINI Francesco Maria SARDANS Jordi SCHMIDT Marco SEIDLER Gunnar SILVA ESPEJO Javier Eduardo SILVEIRA Marcos SMYTH Anita SPORBERT Maria SVENNING Jens-Christian TANG Zhiyao THOMAS Raquel TSIRIPIDIS Ioannis VASSILEV Kiril VIOLLE Cyrille VIRTANEN Risto WEIHER Evan WELK Erik WESCHE Karsten WINTER Marten WIRTH Christian JANDT Ute

Year of publication 2018
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Nature ecology & evolution
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

Citation
Web https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0699-8
Keywords FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY; EXPLAIN VARIATION; LEAF ECONOMICS; CLIMATE; PHYLOGENY; PATTERNS; FOLIAR; TEMPERATURE; PREDICTION; DRIVERS
Description Plant functional traits directly affect ecosystem functions. At the species level, trait combinations depend on trade-offs representing different ecological strategies, but at the community level trait combinations are expected to be decoupled from these trade-offs because different strategies can facilitate co-existence within communities. A key question is to what extent community-level trait composition is globally filtered and how well it is related to global versus local environmental drivers. Here, we perform a global, plot-level analysis of trait-environment relationships, using a database with more than 1.1 million vegetation plots and 26,632 plant species with trait information. Although we found a strong filtering of 17 functional traits, similar climate and soil conditions support communities differing greatly in mean trait values. The two main community trait axes that capture half of the global trait variation (plant stature and resource acquisitiveness) reflect the trade-offs at the species level but are weakly associated with climate and soil conditions at the global scale. Similarly, within-plot trait variation does not vary systematically with macro-environment. Our results indicate that, at fine spatial grain, macro-environmental drivers are much less important for functional trait composition than has been assumed from floristic analyses restricted to co-occurrence in large grid cells. Instead, trait combinations seem to be predominantly filtered by local-scale factors such as disturbance, fine-scale soil conditions, niche partitioning and biotic interactions.
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