Linking environmental filtering and disequilibrium to biogeography with a community climate framework

Blonder, Benjamin; Bravo, David; Borregaard, Michael K.; Donoghue, John C.; Jørgensen, Peter M.; Kraft, Nathan J. B.; Lessard, Jean; Morueta‐Holme, Naia; Sandel, Brody; Svenning, Jens Christian; Violle, Cyrille; Rahbek, Carsten; Enquist, Brian J.

doi:10.1890/14-0589.1

Cited by 79 publications

(162 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…The units of the hypervolumes are reported as the standard deviations of centered and scaled log-transformed trait values, raised to the power of the number of trait dimensions used (sd number of dimensions). We also calculated the overlap between the hypervolumes of each group with the correlation analysis of the “hypervolume” package, which compares the similarity between different hypervolumes using the Sørensen index (see Blonder et al, 2015). A rarefaction analysis was performed to control for the effects of species richness on the hypervolume.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biogeochemical and Ecomorphological Niche Segregation of Mediterranean Woody Species along a Local Gradient

et al. 2017

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According with niche theory the species are specialized in different ecological niches, being able to coexist as result of a differential use of resources. In this context, the biogeochemical niche hypothesis proposes that species have an optimal elemental composition which results from the link between the chemical and morphological traits for the optimum plant functioning. Thus, and attending to the limiting similarity concept, different elemental composition and plant structure among co-occurring species may reduce competition, promoting different functional niches. Different functional habits associated with leaf life-span or growth forms are associated with different strategies for resource uptake, which could promote niche partitioning. In the present study, based on the biogeochemical niche concept and the use of resources in different proportions, we have focused on leaf traits (morphological and chemical) associated with resource uptake, and explored the niche partitioning among functional habits: leaf life-span (deciduous, evergreen, and semideciduous) and growth (tree, shrub, and arborescent-shrub). To this end, we have quantified the hypervolume of the leaf functional trait space (both structure and chemical composition) in a sample of 45 Mediterranean woody species from Sierra Morena Mountains (Spain) growing along a local soil resource gradient. Our results show consistent variation in functional space for woody communities distributed along the environmental gradient. Thus, communities dominated by deciduous trees with faster growth and a predominant acquisitive strategy were characteristic of bottom forests and showed highest leaf biogeochemical space. While semideciduous shrubs and evergreen (arborescent, trees) species, characterized by a conservative strategy, dominated ridge forests and showed smaller functional space. In addition, within each topographical zone or environment type, the foliar biogeochemical niche partitioning would underlie the species ability to coexist by diverging on leaf nutrient composition and resource uptake. Lower niche overlap among functional habits were found, which support that different growth forms and leaf life-habits may facilitate the coexistence of the woody species and niche partitioning along and within the gradient.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biogeochemical and Ecomorphological Niche Segregation of Mediterranean Woody Species along a Local Gradient

et al. 2017

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“…This is especially important if we consider that, under global change, the flux of species in and out of communities (i.e., the species turnover) is likely to increase [3]. The level to which communities are saturated is therefore likely to have a very large influence on the potential for species to shift their distributions and track changing climates, given inertia in the composition of communities, founder priority effects, and limits on space resources 4, 5. Hence, improving our capacity to predict species richness and community composition by considering saturation or unsaturation is key for using models to produce more reliable conservation strategies in response to global environmental change [6].…”

Section: Taking a Modelling Perspective On An Old Debate: Are Communimentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity Models: What If Unsaturation Is the Rule?

Mateo

Mokany

Guisan

2017

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

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Improving biodiversity predictions is essential if we are to meet the challenges posed by global change. As knowledge is key to feed models, we need to evaluate how debated theory can affect models. An important ongoing debate is whether environmental constraints limit the number of species that can coexist in a community (saturation), with recent findings suggesting that species richness in many communities might be unsaturated. Here, we propose that biodiversity models could address this issue by accounting for a duality: considering communities as unsaturated but where species composition is constrained by different scale-dependent biodiversity drivers. We identify a variety of promising advances for incorporating this duality into commonly applied biodiversity modelling approaches and improving their spatial predictions.

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“…This broad assortment of dispersal dynamics has resulted in modern ranges of some North America trees, and other plant species still being constrained by postglacial re‐colonization (Johnstone and Chapin , Payette , Gavin , Blonder et al. ). For example, the northern limit of lodgepole pine ( Pinus contorta ) is not climatically determined, and therefore not in equilibrium with current climate (Johnstone and Chapin ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional diversity of North American broad‐leaved trees is codetermined by past and current environmental factors

Ordóñez

Svenning

2016

Ecosphere

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Modern and historical climate are known to codetermine broad‐scale species richness and composition patterns in temperate regions. Nonetheless, is poorly understood the extent to which these effects individually or in combination determine functional diversity, many studies have simply assumed equilibrium between current climate and functional diversity. We estimated functional richness (FRich) and dispersion (FDisp) of North American broad‐leaved trees by combining distribution and trait information. Then, we determined if contemporary water‐energy availability, current topographic variability, historical climatic stability, and lagged immigration from glacial refugia co‐determined the functional diversity of North American broad‐leaved trees. We did this by assessing the directionality, magnitude, and relative importance of various contemporary and historical environmental factors know to affect species diversity. Contrasts were performed across all North America (Mexico, United States, and Canada), and areas within this region that were glaciated or ice‐free during the Last Glacial Maximum (~21 000 yr ago). FRich and FDisp showed distinct geographic patterns that are strongly associated with both contemporary environmental conditions and glacial–interglacial climate change. Model averaged regression coefficients and AIC‐based variable relative importance estimates show that contemporary productivity (FRich‐wAIC: 1.0; FDisp‐wAIC: 1.0), annual precipitation (FRich‐wAIC: 0.81; FDisp‐wAIC: 1.0), and accessibility to glacial refugia (FRich‐wAIC: 0.92; FDisp‐wAIC: 1.0) have the strongest associations to FRich and FDisp. Furthermore, the association of functional diversity with topographic heterogeneity showed steeper slopes in ice‐free regions. These findings suggest that, contrary to the expectation climate‐diversity equilibrium, functional diversity of North America broad‐leaved trees is codetermined by current climate and lagged immigration from glacial refugia.

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Linking environmental filtering and disequilibrium to biogeography with a community climate framework

Cited by 79 publications

References 58 publications

Biogeochemical and Ecomorphological Niche Segregation of Mediterranean Woody Species along a Local Gradient

Biogeochemical and Ecomorphological Niche Segregation of Mediterranean Woody Species along a Local Gradient

Biodiversity Models: What If Unsaturation Is the Rule?

Functional diversity of North American broad‐leaved trees is codetermined by past and current environmental factors

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