Environment, phylogeny, and photosynthetic pathway as determinants of leaf traits in savanna and forest graminoid species in central Brazil

Amaral, Eliel de Jesus; Franco, Augusto C.; Rivera, Vanessa Lopes; Munhoz, Cássia Beatriz Rodrigues

doi:10.1007/s00442-021-04923-w

Cited by 13 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…We attributed this inconsistency to the different evolutionary processes associated with the different taxa and phylogenetic scales studied ( Figueroa and Smith, 2020 ; Valverde-Barrantes et al, 2020 ). The weak effects of phylogeny were indicative of evolutionary lability during seed plant diversification, resulting in considerable trait distinctiveness across lineages ( Cornwell et al, 2014 ; Amaral et al, 2021 ). Furthermore, most of the phylogenetic effects on leaf traits were observed at the family level, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies ( Yang et al, 2018 ; Zhang et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinct Responses of Leaf Traits to Environment and Phylogeny Between Herbaceous and Woody Angiosperm Species in China

Lü

et al. 2021

Front. Plant Sci.

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Leaf traits play key roles in plant resource acquisition and ecosystem processes; however, whether the effects of environment and phylogeny on leaf traits differ between herbaceous and woody species remains unclear. To address this, in this study, we collected data for five key leaf traits from 1,819 angiosperm species across 530 sites in China. The leaf traits included specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, leaf area, leaf N concentration, and leaf P concentration, all of which are closely related to trade-offs between resource uptake and leaf construction. We quantified the relative contributions of environment variables and phylogeny to leaf trait variation for all species, as well as for herbaceous and woody species separately. We found that environmental factors explained most of the variation (44.4–65.5%) in leaf traits (compared with 3.9–23.3% for phylogeny). Climate variability and seasonality variables, in particular, mean temperature of the warmest and coldest seasons of a year (MTWM/MTWQ and MTCM/MTCQ) and mean precipitation in the wettest and driest seasons of a year (MPWM/MPWQ and MPDM/MPDQ), were more important drivers of leaf trait variation than mean annual temperature (MAT) and mean annual precipitation (MAP). Furthermore, the responses of leaf traits to environment variables and phylogeny differed between herbaceous and woody species. Our study demonstrated the different effects of environment variables and phylogeny on leaf traits among different plant growth forms, which is expected to advance the understanding of plant adaptive strategies and trait evolution under different environmental conditions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinct Responses of Leaf Traits to Environment and Phylogeny Between Herbaceous and Woody Angiosperm Species in China

Lü

et al. 2021

Front. Plant Sci.

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“…Species with similar functional traits are often phylogenetically similar (Losos, 2008 ). When a strong phylogenetic signal is detected in functional traits, environmental filters are probably selected for phylogenetically close species, causing phylogenetic clustering (Amaral et al, 2021 ). Here, only a number of leaf structural traits (LA and LT) showed strong and significant phylogenetic signals, indicating that LA and LT were closely related to phylogenetic history and showed strong phylogenetic conservation; that is, the more phylogenetically close species were more similar to LA and LT. All the dominant tree species had considerably high values of LA, except the deciduous tree species ( Q. fabri and A. kurzii var.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Realistic strategies” and neutral processes drive the community assembly based on leaf functional traits in a subtropical evergreen broad‐leaved forest

Zhao

Xiang

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Neutral‐theory‐based stochastic and niche‐theory‐based determinative processes are commonly used to explain the mechanisms of natural community assembly. However, considerable uncertainty remains regarding the relative importance of different ecological processes in shaping forest communities. Functional traits and phylogeny provide important information about plant environmental adaptation strategies and evolutionary history and promise a better mechanistic and predictive understanding of community assembly. Based on nine leaf functional traits and phylogenetic data of 18 dominant species in a Lithocarpus glaber–Cyclobalanopsis glauca evergreen broad‐leaved forest, we analyzed the variation in traits, explored the influence of phylogeny and environment on leaf traits, and distinguished the relative effects of spatial and environmental variables on functional traits and phylogenetic compositions. The results showed the following: (i) Leaf traits had moderate intraspecific variation, and significant interspecific variation existed especially among life forms. (ii) Significant phylogenetic signals were detected only in leaf thickness and leaf area. The correlations among traits both supported “the leaf economics spectrum” at the species and community levels, and the relationships significantly increased or only a little change after removing the phylogenetic influence, which showed a lack of consistency between the leaf functional trait patterns and phylogenetic patterns. We infer the coexistent species tended to adopt “realism” to adapt to their habitats. (iii) Soil total potassium and phosphorus content, altitude, aspect, and convexity were the most critical environmental factors affecting functional traits and phylogenetic composition. Total environmental and spatial variables explained 63.38% of the variation in functional trait composition and 47.96% of the variation in phylogenetic structures. Meanwhile, the contribution of pure spatial factors was significantly higher than that of the pure environment. Stochastic processes played dominant roles in driving community functional trait assembly, but determinative processes such as environmental filtering had a stronger effect on shaping community phylogenetic structure at a fine scale.

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“…This observation was similar to that by Jiang et al (2018) for temperate deciduous broad-leaved Korean pine forests, in which functional traits could not better reveal ecological processes compared with that by species. However, integrating functional traits with phylogeny can greatly improve the ability to infer determinative and stochastic processes, and trait-and phylogenetic-based approaches are powerful ways to detect community assembly processes (Li et al, 2019;Amaral et al, 2021). We found that the interpretation rate of community assembly based on functional traits (63.38%) was higher than that based on phylogeny (47.96 %).…”

Section: Community Assembly Mechanisms Of Integrated Phylogenetic Lea...mentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Species with similar functional traits are often phylogenetically similar (Losos, 2008). When a strong phylogenetic signal is detected in functional traits, environmental filters are probably selected for phylogenetically close species, causing phylogenetic clustering (Amaral et al, 2021). Here, only a number of leaf structural traits (LA and LT) showed strong and significant phylogenetic signals, indicating that LA and LT were closely related to phylogenetic history and showed strong phylogenetic conservation; that is, the more phylogenetically close species were more similar to LA and LT. All the dominant tree species had considerably high values of LA, except the deciduous tree species (Q. fabri and A. kurzii var.…”

Section: Phylogenetic Effects On Leaf Functional Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Realistic strategies” and neutral processes drive the community assembly based on leaf functional traits in a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest

Zhao

Liu

et al. 2022

Preprint

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We sought to assess effect of plant environmental adaptation strategies and evolutionary history and quantify the contribution of ecological processes to community assembly by measuring functional traits and phylogenetic composition in local forest community. We selected 18 dominant tree species in a Lithocarpus glaber–Cyclobalanopsis glauca evergreen broad-leaved forest and measured nine leaf functional traits and phylogenetic data of each species. We analyzed the variation in traits and trade-off relationships, tested phylogenetic effects on leaf functional traits, explored the influence of phylogeny and environment on leaf functional traits, and distinguished the relative effects of spatial and environmental variables on functional traits and phylogenetic compositions. The results showed the following: (i) Leaf traits had moderate intraspecific variation, and significant interspecific variation existed especially among life forms. (ii) Significant phylogenetic signals were detected only in leaf thickness and leaf area. The correlations among traits both supported “the leaf economics spectrum” at the species and community levels, and the relationships significantly increased or only a little change after removing the influence of phylogeny, which showed a lack of consistency between the leaf functional trait patterns and phylogenetic patterns. We infer the coexistent species tended to adopt “realism” to adapt to their habitats. (iii) Soil total potassium and phosphorus content, altitude, aspect, and convexity were the most critical environmental factors affecting functional traits and phylogenetic composition. Total environmental and spatial variables explained 63.38% of the variation in functional trait composition and 47.96% of the variation in phylogenetic structures. Meanwhile, the contribution of pure spatial factors was significantly higher than that of the pure environment. Neutral- theory-based stochastic processes played dominant roles in driving community functional trait assembly, but niche-theory-based determinative processes such as environmental filtering had a stronger effect on shaping community phylogenetic structure at a fine scale.

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Environment, phylogeny, and photosynthetic pathway as determinants of leaf traits in savanna and forest graminoid species in central Brazil

Cited by 13 publications

References 77 publications

Distinct Responses of Leaf Traits to Environment and Phylogeny Between Herbaceous and Woody Angiosperm Species in China

Distinct Responses of Leaf Traits to Environment and Phylogeny Between Herbaceous and Woody Angiosperm Species in China

“Realistic strategies” and neutral processes drive the community assembly based on leaf functional traits in a subtropical evergreen broad‐leaved forest

“Realistic strategies” and neutral processes drive the community assembly based on leaf functional traits in a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest

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