Alternative Designs and the Evolution of Functional Diversity

Marks, Christian O.; Lechowicz, Martin J.

doi:10.1086/498276

Cited by 214 publications

(229 citation statements)

References 72 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

214

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Future work aimed at directly linking functional traits to mechanisms of species coexistence, therefore, will benefit by incorporating data on fine-scale environmental heterogeneity [18] and temporal variation in resource availability and demographic performance. Contrary to the CWM-optimality hypothesis, more species than expected also had significantly positive relationships between ROR and DCWM, reflecting the success of alternative functional strategies and the high-dimensional nature of species coexistence [17,25,41,42]. For instance, several species with low WD that are particularly abundant in dry forests of our study system (e.g.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 78%

Do community-weighted mean functional traits reflect optimal strategies?

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The notion that relationships between community-weighted mean (CWM) traits (i.e. plot-level trait values weighted by species abundances) and environmental conditions reflect selection towards locally optimal phenotypes is challenged by the large amount of interspecific trait variation typically found within ecological communities. Reconciling these contrasting patterns is a key to advancing predictive theories of functional community ecology. We combined data on geographical distributions and three traits (wood density, leaf mass per area and maximum height) of 173 tree species in Puerto Rico. We tested the hypothesis that species are more likely to occur where their trait values are more similar to the local CWM trait values (the 'CWM-optimality' hypothesis) by comparing species occurrence patterns (as a proxy for fitness) with the functional composition of forest plots across a precipitation gradient. While 70% of the species supported CWM-optimality for at least one trait, nearly 25% significantly opposed it for at least one trait, thereby contributing to local functional diversity. The majority (85%) of species that opposed CWMoptimality did so only for one trait and few species opposed CWM-optimality in multivariate trait space. Our study suggests that constraints to local functional variation act more strongly on multivariate phenotypes than on univariate traits.

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 78%

Do community-weighted mean functional traits reflect optimal strategies?

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Any single trait in this leaf economic spectrum responds to multiple environmental factors in ways constrained by functional linkages to other foliar and non-foliar traits reflecting a variety of plant functions at the whole plant level Lechowicz 2006b, Reich 2014). This creates multiple possibilities for combinations of traits that yield approximately equal performance at the whole plant level (Marks and Lechowicz 2006a). Although the LES is strong across broad scales, it is typically much weaker on small gradients and within communities (e.g., Funk and Cornwell 2013), so that along the main LES trade-off axes, traits retain a significant ability to vary independently of each other, i.e., show scatter perpendicular to an LES trade-off axis.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of grazing on foliar trait diversity and niche differentiation in Tibetan alpine meadows

Niu

Messier

et al. 2015

Ecosphere

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Citation: Niu, K., J. Messier, J.-S. He, and M. J. Lechowicz. 2015. The effects of grazing on foliar trait diversity and niche differentiation in Tibetan alpine meadows. Ecosphere 6(9):150. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/ES14-00547.1Abstract. Niche differentiation arising in functional trait diversity is expected to increase the potential for species coexistence, but empirical evidence for these relationships is sparse. We test whether grazing increases the functional diversity of leaf traits and niche differentiation in phosphorus limited Tibetan alpine meadows. We measured five traits in the leaf economic spectrum (LES; LC, leaf carbon concentration; LN, leaf nitrogen concentration; LP, leaf phosphorus concentration; SLA, specific leaf area; and LDMC, leaf dry matter content) for all species occurring in grazed and ungrazed plots at each of five sites. By comparing indicators of the fundamental and realized niches of co-occurring plants in both grazed and ungrazed plots, we quantified a grazing-mediated competitive effect on trait divergence and convergence. This trait response reflects the relative importance of niche differentiation and competitive exclusion in response to grazing. We found that while grazing induced LP divergence, both LC and LN tended to converge under grazing. Grazing had no effect on either SLA or LDMC diversity. When all five traits are considered together as a functionally integrated suite (LES hypervolume), there is no evidence for either divergence or convergence in response to grazing. Although grazing promotes functionally relevant diversity in LP that enables niche differentiation in competition for scarce soil available P, these results suggest that coordinated shifts in other LES traits sustain effective overall foliar function despite shifts in LP.

show abstract

“…For diverse systems, such as tropical forest tree communities, many empirical studies have shown that functional traits of species are often distributed in ways that are consistent with mechanisms of community assembly, such as habitat filtering (6, 7), but lack depth to evaluate underlying mechanisms. More biophysical studies on mechanisms are often confined to small samples of species (8) or to theoretical simulations (9) and therefore fail to explain the community-level consequences of physiological differences among species. We lack studies that provide detailed trait-based biophysical models to understand the possible consequences of functional trait differences across species for niche separation, which in turn may act as one of the mechanisms contributing to species coexistence in species-rich communities (3,10), such as tropical forests (11).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, to maintain their high photosynthetic rates at high resource levels, acquisitive tree species require high stomatal conductance and, in turn, a high hydraulic conductivity of the watertransporting wood to sustain a high transpiration rate (9,32). Highly conductive wood, however, involves a higher risk of hydraulic failure, i.e., the cavitation of xylem water columns, under dry conditions (30,33).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional traits determine trade-offs and niches in a tropical forest community

Sterck

Markesteijn

Schieving

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

236

204

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How numerous tree species can coexist in diverse forest communities is a key question in community ecology. Whereas neutral theory assumes that species are adapted to common field conditions and coexist by chance, niche theory predicts that species are functionally different and coexist because they are specialized for different niches. We integrated biophysical principles into a mathematical plant model to determine whether and how functional plant traits and trade-offs may cause functional divergence and niche separation of tree species. We used this model to compare the carbon budget of saplings across 13 co-occurring dry-forest tree species along gradients of light and water availability. We found that species ranged in strategy, from acquisitive species with high carbon budgets at highest resource levels to more conservative species with high tolerances for both shade and drought. The crown leaf area index and nitrogen mass per leaf area drove the functional divergence along the simulated light gradient, which was consistent with observed species distributions along light gradients in the forest. Stomatal coordination to avoid low water potentials or hydraulic failure caused functional divergence along the simulated water gradient, but was not correlated to observed species distributions along the water gradient in the forest. The trait-based biophysical model thus explains how functional traits cause functional divergence across species and whether such divergence contributes to niche separation along resource gradients.

show abstract

Alternative Designs and the Evolution of Functional Diversity

Cited by 214 publications

References 72 publications

Do community-weighted mean functional traits reflect optimal strategies?

Do community-weighted mean functional traits reflect optimal strategies?

The effects of grazing on foliar trait diversity and niche differentiation in Tibetan alpine meadows

Functional traits determine trade-offs and niches in a tropical forest community

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About