Functional Diversity and Its Attribute Factors in the Yunmeng Mountain National Forest Park in Beijing, China

Abstract

The interaction of diversity with environmental gradients is an important topic in ecology. This study investigated the pattern of change in functional diversity in forest communities along an altitudinal gradient in Yunmeng Mountain National Forest Park, China. Forty-two quadrats measuring 10 x 10 m in the forest communities were set up along this altitudinal gradient; plant species, traits and environmental variables were measured and recorded. Six functional diversity indices, namely, Modified functional attribute diversity (MFAD), Functional diversity plot-based dendrogram index (FDp), Functional diversity community-based dendrogram index (FDc), Functional evenness (FEve), Functional divergence (FDiv) and Functional dispersion (FDis), were used to calculate functional diversity. The results showed that functional diversity varied greatly in forest communities in the Yunmeng Mountain Forest Park. Functional diversity was significantly correlated with elevation and slope position and somewhat correlated with soil depth. Functional diversity increased with an increase in the elevation and decreased as the slope position changed from valley bottom to hill ridge. Functional diversity was closely related to species richness. The six functional diversity indices were all applicable to functional diversity studies of forest communities.

Functional diversity along disturbance and environmental gradients in Ethiopian moist Afromontane forest

“…In contrast, three functional diversity indices were analyzed for CWM.WD, CWM.SLA, and CWM.SM along disturbance gradients and showed an increasing pattern in agreement with the findings of Levine et al (2016). This showed that the relationships between CWM.WD, CWM.SLA, and CWM.SM with disturbance gradients can vary depending on the type and intensity of the disturbance, which has similarities with Zhang et al (2017). Low disturbance intensity promotes the growth of high wood density species, and species with low SLA can allocate more resources to structural tissues and less to leaf production, which provides them with greater drought tolerance and protec-tion against herbivory, consistent with the previous studies.…”

“…Plants with larger seeds tend to allocate more resources to seed production, which can result in reduced seed quantity. Where establishment success is more uncertain, smaller-seeded species may compensate for their reduced ability to compete with larger-seeded species by producing more seeds (Zhang et al, 2017). Additionally, larger seeds may be less efficient for dispersal as they are heavier and have a limited dispersal range compared to smaller seeds (Honour & Rowan, 2022).…”

“…Functional diversity can be measured by the suite of ecological functions that different species perform in an ecosystem in response to varying levels of disturbance (Levine et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2017). Aligned with this, patterns of functional diversity along disturbance gradients are typically decreasing because disturbances often favor species that are adapted to the disturbed conditions, such as fast-growing species or opportunistic colonizers, at the cost of other species that are less adapted, as already indicated (Bertrand et al, 2015).…”

Variation Patterns of Functional Trait Moments Along Geographical Gradients and Their Environmental Determinants in the Subtropical Evergreen Broadleaved Forests

“…However, previous studies on the biogeographical variations of plant functional traits considered only latitudinal or elevational gradients, few studies have been done to test variations of functional diversity along multiple gradients simultaneously. Although the latitudinal gradients and elevational gradients are often considered to be parallel in many studies (Chun and Lee, 2018), increased rather than decreased trends of functional diversity with elevation were found in other studies on low or middle altitude mountains (Zhang et al, 2017). Therefore, it is still necessary to study the variations of functional diversity along different geographical gradients.…”

Pattern of functional diversity along the elevation gradient in the dry evergreen Afromontane forest of Hararghe Highland, Southeast Ethiopia

“…Functional diversity is an important ecological attribute of a particular ecosystem (Mason et al, 2005;Conti & Díaz, 2013). In recent decades, functional diversity has received much attention from conservationists and ecologists (Zhang et al, 2017;Thakur & Chawla, 2019). Functional diversity is an important predictor of species in response to environmental changes and is used to describe specific functional adaptations of plants to different environmental factors (Mouchet et al, 2010;Mason & de Bello, 2013).…”