The effect of environmental filtering on variation in functional diversity along a tropical elevational gradient

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 973-983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Ding ◽  
Runguo Zang ◽  
Xinghui Lu ◽  
Jihong Huang ◽  
Yue Xu
Keyword(s):  
Functional Diversity ◽  
Environmental Filtering ◽  
Elevational Gradient

scholarly journals Do forest over- and understory respond to the same environmental variables when viewed at the taxonomic and trait level?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenny Helsen ◽  
Yeng-Chen Shen ◽  
Tsung-Yi Lin ◽  
Chien-Fan Chen ◽  
Chu-Mei Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Diversity ◽  
Environmental Filtering ◽  
Soil Nutrient ◽  
Woody Species ◽  
Elevational Gradient ◽  
Functional Trait ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Diversity Patterns ◽  
Soil Variation

While the relative importance of climate filtering is known to be higher for woody species assemblages than herbaceous assemblage, it remains largely unexplored whether this pattern is also reflected between the woody overstory and herbaceous understory of forests. While climatic variation will be more buffered by the tree layer, the understory might also respond more to small-scale soil variation, next to experiencing additional environmental filtering due to the overstory's effects on light and litter quality. For (sub)tropical forests, the understory often contains a high proportion of fern and lycophyte species, for which environmental filtering is even less well understood. We explored the proportional importance of climate proxies and soil variation on the species, functional trait and (functional) diversity patterns of both the forest overstory and fern and lycophyte understory along an elevational gradient from 850 to 2100 m a.s.l. in northern Taiwan. We selected nine functional traits expected to respond to soil nutrient or climatic stress for this study and furthermore verified whether they were positively related across vegetation layers, as expected when driven by similar environmental drivers. We found that climate was a proportionally more important predictor than soil for the species composition of both vegetation layers and trait composition of the understory. The stronger than expected proportional effect of climate for the understory was likely due to fern and lycophytes' higher vulnerability to drought, while the high importance of soil for the overstory seemed driven by deciduous species. The environmental drivers affected different response traits in both vegetation layers, however, which together with additional overstory effects on understory traits, resulted in a strong disconnection of community-level trait values across layers. Interestingly, species and functional diversity patterns could be almost exclusively explained by climate effects for both vegetational layers, with the exception of understory species richness. This study illustrates that environmental filtering can differentially affect species, trait and diversity patterns and can be highly divergent for forest overstory and understory vegetation, and should consequently not be extrapolated across vegetation layers or between composition and diversity patterns.

scholarly journals Dung Beetles along a Tropical Altitudinal Gradient: Environmental Filtering on Taxonomic and Functional Diversity

PLoS ONE ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. e0157442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cássio Alencar Nunes ◽  
Rodrigo Fagundes Braga ◽  
José Eugênio Cortes Figueira ◽  
Frederico de Siqueira Neves ◽  
G. Wilson Fernandes
Keyword(s):  
Functional Diversity ◽  
Altitudinal Gradient ◽  
Environmental Filtering ◽  
Dung Beetles

scholarly journals Species Richness, Abundance and Functional Diversity of a Bat Community along an Elevational Gradient in the Espinhaço Mountain Range, Southeastern Brazil

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo De Rodrigues Coelho ◽  
Adriano Pereira Paglia ◽  
Arleu Barbosa Viana-Junior ◽  
Luiz A. Dolabela Falcão ◽  
Guilherme B. Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Functional Diversity ◽  
Elevational Gradient ◽  
Southeastern Brazil ◽  
Mountain Range

scholarly journals The Coupled Influence of Thermal Physiology and Biotic Interactions on the Distribution and Density of Ant Species along an Elevational Gradient

Diversity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 456
Author(s):  
Lacy D. Chick ◽  
Jean-Philippe Lessard ◽  
Robert R. Dunn ◽  
Nathan J. Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Observational Data ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Phylogenetic Signal ◽  
Environmental Filtering ◽  
Null Model ◽  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Elevational Gradient ◽  
High Elevation ◽  
Elevational Range ◽  
Stressful Environments

A fundamental tenet of biogeography is that abiotic and biotic factors interact to shape the distributions of species and the organization of communities, with interactions being more important in benign environments, and environmental filtering more important in stressful environments. This pattern is often inferred using large databases or phylogenetic signal, but physiological mechanisms underlying such patterns are rarely examined. We focused on 18 ant species at 29 sites along an extensive elevational gradient, coupling experimental data on critical thermal limits, null model analyses, and observational data of density and abundance to elucidate factors governing species’ elevational range limits. Thermal tolerance data showed that environmental conditions were likely to be more important in colder, more stressful environments, where physiology was the most important constraint on the distribution and density of ant species. Conversely, the evidence for species interactions was strongest in warmer, more benign conditions, as indicated by our observational data and null model analyses. Our results provide a strong test that biotic interactions drive the distributions and density of species in warm climates, but that environmental filtering predominates at colder, high-elevation sites. Such a pattern suggests that the responses of species to climate change are likely to be context-dependent and more specifically, geographically-dependent.

scholarly journals Diverse recruitment to a taxonomically structured global atmospheric microbiota

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Archer ◽  
Kevin Lee ◽  
Tancredi Caruso ◽  
Marcus Leung ◽  
Xinzhao Tong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Diversity ◽  
Atmospheric Transport ◽  
Environmental Filtering ◽  
Source Tracking ◽  
Recruitment Process ◽  
Ecosystem Connectivity ◽  
Fungal Assemblages ◽  
Survival In Air ◽  
Stochastic Assembly ◽  
Globally Distributed

Abstract Atmospheric transport is critical to dispersal of microorganisms between habitats and this underpins resilience in terrestrial and marine ecosystems globally. A key unresolved question is whether microorganisms assemble to form a taxonomically distinct, geographically variable, and functionally adapted atmospheric microbiota. Here we characterised inter-continental patterns of microbial taxonomic and functional diversity in air within and above the atmospheric boundary layer and in underlying soils for 596 globally sourced samples. Bacterial and fungal assemblages in air were taxonomically structured and deviated significantly from purely stochastic assembly. Patterns differed with location and reflected underlying surface cover and environmental filtering. Source-tracking indicated a complex recruitment process involving local soils plus globally distributed inputs from drylands and the phyllosphere. Assemblages displayed stress-response and metabolic traits relevant to survival in air, and taxonomic and functional diversity were correlated with macroclimate and atmospheric variables. Our findings highlight complexity in the atmospheric microbiota that is key to understanding regional and global ecosystem connectivity.

scholarly journals Hiking and Livestock Favor Non-Native Plants in The High Andes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Alisa Alvarez ◽  
Ana Agustina Barros ◽  
Diego Pedro Vázquez ◽  
Lorena de Jesús Bonjour ◽  
Jonas Lembrechts ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Native Plants ◽  
Environmental Filtering ◽  
Elevational Gradient ◽  
Native Vegetation ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Native Community ◽  
Upper Limits ◽  
Native Plant Community ◽  
Facilitative Interactions

Abstract Hikers and livestock using mountain trails damage native vegetation and act as seed vectors, thus favouring the spread of non-native plants. We evaluated the effect of trails and livestock abundance on the success of non-native plants in the arid central Andes of Argentina. We surveyed six trails, covering elevations between 2400 m and 3570 m a.s.l. and recorded non-native and native vegetation using transects distributed along the elevational gradient and spanning distances up to 22 m from the trail. We assessed how non-native occurrence, richness and cover varied with distance from the trail, intensity of use by livestock, native plant community composition and elevation. We found that trails favoured non-native occurrence, but did not influence richness and cover, while livestock favoured non-native occurrence, richness and cover. Non-native richness and cover decreased with elevation and varied with native community composition. In addition, non-native richness was positively correlated with native shrub cover suggesting possible facilitative interactions. Our results show that despite strong environmental filtering that decreases non-native abundance with elevation, non-natives occur up to the upper limits of vegetation, and that trails and livestock favour their spread in the mountains.

scholarly journals Functional Diversity in Ferns Is Driven by Species Richness Rather Than by Environmental Constraints

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Aros-Mualin ◽  
Sarah Noben ◽  
Dirk N. Karger ◽  
César I. Carvajal-Hernández ◽  
Laura Salazar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Functional Diversity ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
Environmental Filtering ◽  
Diversity Indices ◽  
Resource Acquisition ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Acquisition Strategies ◽  
Functional Diversity Indices

Functional traits determine how species interact with their abiotic and biotic environment. In turn, functional diversity describes how assemblages of species as a whole are adapted to their environment, which also determines how they might react to changing conditions. To fully understand functional diversity, it is fundamental to (a) disentangle the influences of environmental filtering and species richness from each other, (b) assess if the trait space saturates at high levels of species richness, and (c) understand how changes in species numbers affect the relative importance of the trait niche expansion and packing. In the present study, we determined functional diversity of fern assemblages by describing morphological traits related to resource acquisition along four tropical elevational transects with different environmental conditions and species richness. We used several functional diversity indices and their standardized effect size to consider different aspects of functional diversity. We contrasted these aspects of functional diversity with climate data and species richness using linear models and linear mixed models. Our results show that functional morphological trait diversity was primarily driven by species richness and only marginally by environmental conditions. Moreover, increasing species richness contributed progressively to packing of the morphological niche space, while at the same time decreasing morphological expansion until a saturation point was reached. Overall, our findings suggest that the density of co-occurring species is the fundamental driving force of morphological niche structure, and environmental conditions have only an indirect influence on fern resource acquisition strategies.

scholarly journals Projecting consequences of global warming for the functional diversity of fleshy‐fruited plants and frugivorous birds along a tropical elevational gradient

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (9) ◽  
pp. 1362-1374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Nowak ◽  
W. Daniel Kissling ◽  
Irene M. A. Bender ◽  
D. Matthias Dehling ◽  
Till Töpfer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Functional Diversity ◽  
Elevational Gradient ◽  
Frugivorous Birds

scholarly journals Environmental filtering limits functional diversity during succession in a seasonally wet tropical secondary forest

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 511-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dylan Craven ◽  
Jefferson S. Hall ◽  
Graeme P. Berlyn ◽  
Mark S. Ashton ◽  
Michiel van Breugel
Keyword(s):  
Functional Diversity ◽  
Secondary Forest ◽  
Environmental Filtering ◽  
Tropical Secondary Forest
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document