Plant functional types and climate in a southern African savanna

Abstract

A system of easily defined plant functional types for a dry savanna is presented and related to climate data. To predict possible changes of vegetation in response to climate change, a system of functional attributes is developed. The attributes are based on both structural and functional characteristics and are chosen to be related to climatic conditions. plant functional types are defined as assemblages of plant species having similar combinations of plant functional attributes. Direct and indirect gradient analyses of a test data set show that the plant functional types as well as the vegetation described from them are strongly associated with total annual precipitation, precipitation of the wettest month and a moisture index (all related to soil moisture) and with temperature of the coldest month.

Functional trait differences between extant exotic, native and extinct native plants in the Hunter River, NSW: a potential tool in riparian rehabilitation

“…These traits were selected on the basis that they have been shown to be associated with colonization, growth and reproduction and have been used extensively in previous studies (McIntyre et al, 1999;Weiher et al, 1999;Westoby et al, 2002) facilitating more direct comparisons with these studies. Trait data were obtained from field collections and observation, Mt Annan Botanic Garden seed collection, floras (Harden, 1990(Harden, , 1991(Harden, , 1992(Harden, , 1993, (Benson and McDougall, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, online databases (Klimesova and Klimes, 1998;Flynn et al, 2004) and Macquarie University databases. Seed mass, defined as the weight of the embryo, endosperm and seed coat excluding dispersal structures, was obtained from several different sources.…”

Respostas de tipos funcionais de plantas à intensidade de pastejo em vegetação campestre

“…O International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), com seu núcleo de estudos principal Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE), tem organizado grupos de trabalhos, desde 1993, sobre o assunto, chegando à conclusão de que a identificação de tipos funcionais (TF) de plantas é essencial para os modelos preditivos (Steffen et al, 1992). Vários estudos têm demonstrado que dificilmente será possível estabelecer uma classificação universal de TF e, portanto, eles devem ser identificados para diferentes propósitos e com diferentes níveis de resolução (Skarpe, 1996). Segundo alguns autores, TF são grupos de plantas que exibem respostas similares às condições de ambiente e apresentam efeitos parecidos sobre os processos dominantes do ecossistema.…”

“…Qualquer que seja a aproximação escolhida para a definição dos tipos de planta, é vital a seleção do conjunto de atributos que será submetido ao esquema analítico (Skarpe, 1996). A escolha do conjunto de atributos pode estar baseada em dados da literatura ou em estudos de campo (Díaz Barradas et al, 1999) ou laborató-rio (Grime et al, 1997).…”

“…A escolha do conjunto de atributos pode estar baseada em dados da literatura ou em estudos de campo (Díaz Barradas et al, 1999) ou laborató-rio (Grime et al, 1997). Podem ser utilizados atributos morfológicos ou fisiológicos ligados às características ecológicas (Keddy, 1992), porém deve-se levar em conta os custos e a possibilidade da observação (Skarpe, 1996). Dependendo da escala e propósito do estudo, podem ser coletados atributos de cada espécie ou, considerando a variação intra-específica, de cada população (Thompson et al, 1996;Díaz et al, 1999).…”

Plant functional groups based on vegetative and reproductive traits in a subtropical forest community

“…There has been a great deal of work focused on defining and classifying PFTs (Chapin et al 1996;Skarpe 1996;Walker 1999;Kahmen and Poschlod 2004;Foster and Brooks 2005;Kariuki et al 2006). Some of them, for example, Vile et al (2006) who examined 34 herbaceous species, have proposed that plant ecological strategies can be quantified and modeled by principal components analysis, and some of them have tied PFTs with environmental factors such as linking tree growth of PFTs to habitats (Kariuki et al 2006), or to stress, grazing, and ploughing (Fernández-Alés et al 1993), and to strategies of soil water uptake (Golluscio and Sala 1993).…”