Old, climatically buffered and infertile landscapes (OCBILs) are remarkably species-diverse, but the assembly of their ecological communities is largely unknown. Our goal was to understand how edaphic filters drive the functional structure of plant communities in an ancient and nutrient-impoverished ecosystem. We carried out a functional screening across four types of campo rupestre habitats with different edaphic conditions. We investigated trait–soil relationships for ironstone and quartzitic substrate to obtain the optimal trait values of each condition. In addition, we built unipartite networks to explore trait–trait relationships to assess functional coordination among organs. Lower soil pH and less soil water retention potential increased the proportion of smaller leaves, tissue dry mass and tissue density, resulting in more resource-conservative plant species and communities. Trait functions were tightly correlated among organs at both the plot and the individual level, indicating a trend of phenotypic integration. Architectural traits were central to coordination, suggesting their key role in integrating sap transport, mechanical support and leaf display. We conclude that the trait adjustments in response to soil parameters are important for the coexistence of a large number of species in the campo rupestre ecosystem.
Environmental filtering and niche differentiation are often invoked to explain species coexistence at local scales. The ironstone campo rupestre of Brazil provides a biodiverse natural experiment in which edaphic gradients represent filters to test the hypothesis that plant community functional composition, despite converging on extreme stress tolerance, exhibits a co-structure with environmental parameters. At the Serra do Rola-Moça State Park, soil physico-chemical parameters were characterized alongside community-weighted mean plant functional traits and Grime’s competitor, stress-tolerator and ruderal strategies for species at each sampling site. In general, species exhibited a high degree of stress tolerance (between 72.6% and 100%), while ruderalism was 0% for all species. Soil nutrients related to plant metabolism (e.g. P, Ca, Mg) were associated with the stress-tolerant strategy and with traits involved in the leaf economics and size spectra. Despite a major edaphic filter selecting stress tolerance, fine-scale microhabitat variability represented by soil parameters related to fertility (i.e. P, Ca, Mg) and water retention capacity (i.e. clay content) was associated with subtle variation in ecological strategies and functional traits of species in the ironstone campo rupestre.
The increase in rates of habitat loss requires an understanding of how biodiversity is distributed. Campo rupestre is an old, climatically buffered, and infertile landscape located in Brazil. Considered a biodiversity hotspot, the campo rupestre is mainly threatened by mining activity that requires a large operating area. Campo rupestre is known for its restricted distribution area and high abiotic heterogeneity, which modulates species coexistence and richness. To recognise the association between habitat type and plant communities, we propose to describe the floristic composition of herbaceous and shrub components in four habitats of the campo rupestre comprising quartzite and ferruginous substrate. We classified habitat types by the main surface soil features. In each habitat, we sampled ten 100-m2 plots to access information on the shrub and ten 1-m2 plots for the herbaceous component. Altogether we sampled 153 species, belonging to 38 families. The cluster analysis ordered by Sorensen metric indicates a clear distinction of species composition in the shrub component in the four habitats. However, the floristic composition of the herbaceous component was similar between the four habitats but showed a distinction when contrasting with the substrate type. Our results highlight the local taxonomic distinction between habitat types and substrates, indicating that the ecological distinction among substrate types of the campo rupestre cannot be overlooked in conservation and restoration actions.
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