The interplay among intraspecific leaf trait variation, niche breadth and species abundance along light and soil nutrient gradients

Oikos ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 128 (6) ◽  
pp. 881-891 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Fajardo ◽  
Andrew Siefert
Keyword(s):  
Niche Breadth ◽  
Species Abundance ◽  
Soil Nutrient ◽  
Trait Variation ◽  
Leaf Trait ◽  
Nutrient Gradients

scholarly journals Climatic factors shaping intraspecific leaf trait variation of a neotropical tree along a rainfall gradient

PLoS ONE ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. e0208512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matheus L. Souza ◽  
Alexandre A. Duarte ◽  
Maria B. Lovato ◽  
Marcilio Fagundes ◽  
Fernando Valladares ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Trait Variation ◽  
Rainfall Gradient ◽  
Leaf Trait ◽  
Neotropical Tree

scholarly journals Damming in the Madeira River modifies the food spectrum of piscivorous and affects their resource partitioning

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandra Pasian Lonardoni ◽  
Cristhiana Paula Röpke ◽  
Taís Melo ◽  
Gislene Torrente-Vilara
Keyword(s):  
Resource Partitioning ◽  
Species Coexistence ◽  
Niche Breadth ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Species Abundance ◽  
Hydroelectric Power Plant ◽  
Hydroelectric Power ◽  
Stomach Fullness ◽  
Congeneric Species ◽  
Madeira River

Abstract Phylogenetic proximity suggests some degree of diet similarity among species. Usually, studies of diet show that species coexistence is allowed by partitioning food resources. We evaluate how visually oriented piscivorous fishes (Characiformes) share prey before and after building the Santo Antônio Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) in the Madeira River (Brazil), the largest muddy-water tributary of the Amazon River. Piscivorous species (Acestrorhynchus falcirostris, Acestrorhynchus heterolepis, Hydrolycus scomberoides, and Rhaphiodon vulpinus) were sampled under pristine (pre-HPP) and disturbed (post-HPP) environmental conditions. We analyzed species abundance and stomach contents for stomach fullness and prey composition to check variations between congeneric and non-congeneric species. The percent volume of prey taxa was normalized by stomach fullness and grouped into the taxonomic family level to determine diet, niche breadth, and overlap. Only R. vulpinus abundance increased in post-HPP. There was no significant variation in niche breadth between the periods, while niche overlap decreased in congeneric and non-congeneric species. Our results indicate that river impoundment affected piscivorous fishes in distinct ways and modified their resource partitioning. Therefore, evaluate interspecific interactions is a required tool to understand how fishes respond to river damming.

Topography consistently drives intra‐ and inter‐specific leaf trait variation within tree species complexes in a Neotropical forest

Oikos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 129 (10) ◽  
pp. 1521-1530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvain Schmitt ◽  
Bruno Hérault ◽  
Émilie Ducouret ◽  
Anne Baranger ◽  
Niklas Tysklind ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tree Species ◽  
Trait Variation ◽  
Leaf Trait ◽  
Neotropical Forest ◽  
Species Complexes

Species Abundance, Niche Position, and Niche Breadth for Five Terrestrial Animal Assemblages

Ecology ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 816-818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven W. Seagle ◽  
Gary F. McCracken
Keyword(s):  
Niche Breadth ◽  
Species Abundance ◽  
Terrestrial Animal

scholarly journals Evaluating different methods for retrieving intraspecific leaf trait variation from hyperspectral leaf reflectance

2021 ◽  
Vol 130 ◽  
pp. 108111
Author(s):  
Kenny Helsen ◽  
Leonardo Bassi ◽  
Hannes Feilhauer ◽  
Teja Kattenborn ◽  
Hajime Matsushima ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Trait Variation ◽  
Leaf Reflectance ◽  
Leaf Trait

Within-species leaf trait variation and ecological flexibility in resprouting tropical trees

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 527-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl F. Salk
Keyword(s):  
Leaf Area ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Functional Trait ◽  
Leaf Mass Per Area ◽  
Trait Variation ◽  
Leaf Functional Traits ◽  
Leaf Trait ◽  
Neotropical Tree ◽  
Ecological Flexibility

Plants have an inherent flexibility to respond to different environmental conditions. One axis of plant ecophysiological strategy is seen in the spectrum of leaf functional traits. Flexibility in these traits would be suggestive of plants’ phenotypic plasticity in response to environmental changes. This research seeks to identify differences between leaves of sprout and non-sprout shoots of a broad ecological range of neotropical tree species. Using a functional-trait approach, this study assesses a large pool of species for within-species physiological flexibility. Leaf mass per area (LMA) and leaf area were measured for plants of sprout and non-sprout origin for 26 tree species grown in a reforestation plantation in Panama. Sprouts had a consistently lower LMA than non-sprouts, but there was no consistent pattern for leaf area. These trends show that sprouts are more like pioneer species than conspecific saplings, a finding in general agreement with fast sprout growth seen in previous studies. Further, later-successional (high LMA) species showed a greater reduction of LMA in sprouts. These results show that tropical tree species adjust physiologically to changing ecological roles and suggest that certain species may be more resilient than realized to changing climate and disturbance patterns.

scholarly journals Decomposing leaf mass into photosynthetic and structural components explains divergent patterns of trait variation within and among plant species

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masatoshi Katabuchi ◽  
Kaoru Kitajima ◽  
S. Joseph Wright ◽  
Sunshine A. Van Bael ◽  
Jeanne L. D. Osnas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
List Type ◽  
Metabolic Rates ◽  
Leaf Lifespan ◽  
Trait Variation ◽  
Leaf Toughness ◽  
Leaf Trait ◽  
Metabolic Traits ◽  
Leaf Mass ◽  
Mass Dependent

AbstractAcross the global flora, photosynthetic and metabolic rates depend more strongly on leaf area than leaf mass. In contrast, intraspecific variation in these rates is strongly mass-dependent. These contrasting patterns suggest that the causes of variation in leaf mass per area (LMA) may be fundamentally different within vs. among species.We used statistical methods to decompose LMA into two conceptual components – ‘photosynthetic’ LMAp (which determines photosynthetic capacity and metabolic rates, and also affects optimal leaf lifespan) and ‘structural’ LMAs (which determines leaf toughness and potential leaf lifespan) using leaf trait data from tropical forest sites in Panama and a global leaf-trait database.Statistically decomposing LMA into LMAp and LMAs provides improved predictions of trait variation (photosynthesis, respiration, and lifespan) across the global flora, and within and among tropical plant species in Panama. Our analysis shows that most interspecific LMA variation is due to LMAs (which explains why photosynthetic and metabolic traits are area-dependent across species) and that intraspecific LMA variation is due to changes in both LMAp and LMAs (which explains why photosynthetic and metabolic traits are mass-dependent within species).Our results suggest that leaf trait variation is multi-dimensional and is not well-represented by the one-dimensional leaf economics spectrum.

scholarly journals A unified model of species abundance, genetic diversity, and functional diversity reveals the mechanisms structuring ecological communities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Overcast ◽  
Megan Ruffley ◽  
James Rosindell ◽  
Luke Harmon ◽  
Paulo A. V. Borges ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Assembly ◽  
Island Biogeography ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Mechanistic Model ◽  
Species Abundance ◽  
Real Data ◽  
Current Theory ◽  
Supervised Machine Learning ◽  
Ecological Communities ◽  
Trait Variation

AbstractBiodiversity accumulates hierarchically by means of ecological and evolutionary processes and feedbacks. Reconciling the relative importance of these processes is hindered by current theory, which tends to focus on a single spatial, temporal or taxonomic scale. We introduce a mechanistic model of community assembly, rooted in classic island biogeography theory, which makes temporally explicit joint predictions across three biodiversity data axes: i) species richness and abundances; ii) population genetic diversities; and iii) trait variation in a phylogenetic context. We demonstrate that each data axis captures information at different timescales, and that integrating these axes enables discriminating among previously unidentifiable community assembly models. We combine our massive eco-evolutionary synthesis simulations (MESS) with supervised machine learning to fit the parameters of the model to real data and infer processes underlying how biodiversity accumulates, using communities of tropical trees, arthropods, and gastropods as case studies that span a range of spatial scales.

scholarly journals Leaf nitrogen from first principles: field evidence for adaptive variation with climate

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ning Dong ◽  
Iain Colin Prentice ◽  
Bradley J. Evans ◽  
Stefan Caddy-Retalic ◽  
Andrew J. Lowe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Species Turnover ◽  
Leaf Nitrogen ◽  
Functional Ecology ◽  
Leaf Mass Per Area ◽  
Mean Annual Temperature ◽  
Rubisco Activity ◽  
Trait Variation ◽  
Leaf Trait ◽  
Field Evidence

Abstract. Nitrogen content per unit leaf area (Narea) is a key variable in plant functional ecology and biogeochemistry. Narea comprises a structural component, which scales with leaf mass per area (LMA), and a metabolic component, which scales with Rubisco capacity. The co-ordination hypothesis, as implemented in LPJ and related global vegetation models, predicts that Rubisco capacity should be directly proportional to irradiance but should decrease with ci:ca and temperature because the amount of Rubisco required to achieve a given assimilation rate declines with both. We tested these predictions using LMA, leaf δ13C and leaf N measurements on complete species assemblages sampled at sites on a North-South transect from tropical to temperate Australia. Partial effects of mean canopy irradiance, mean annual temperature and ci:ca (from δ13C) on Narea were all significant and their directions and magnitudes were in line with predictions. Over 80 % of the variance in community-mean (ln) Narea was accounted for by these predictors plus LMA. Moreover, Narea could be decomposed into two components, one proportional to LMA (slightly steeper in N-fixers), the other to predicted Rubisco activity. Trait gradient analysis revealed ci:ca to be perfectly plastic, while species turnover contributed about half the variation in LMA and Narea. Interest has surged in methods to predict continuous leaf-trait variation from environmental factors, in order to improve ecosystem models. Our results indicate that Narea has a useful degree of predictability, from a combination of LMA and ci:ca – themselves in part environmentally determined – with Rubisco activity, as predicted from local growing conditions. This is consistent with a 'plant-centred' approach to modelling, emphasizing the adaptive regulation of traits. Models that account for biodiversity will also need to partition community-level trait variation into components due to phenotypic plasticity and/or genotypic differentiation within species, versus progressive species replacement, along environmental gradients. Our analysis suggests that variation in Narea is about evenly split between these two modes.

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