Shifts in ecological strategy spectra of typical forest vegetation types across four climatic zones

Abstract

Ecological strategy spectrum is the relative proportion of species in different categories of ecological strategies in a biotic community. Here, we explored ecological strategy spectra in typical forest vegetation types across four climatic zones in China. We classified ecological strategy categories by using the “StrateFy” ordination method based on three leaf functional traits. Results showed that the predominant ecological strategies of species in the tropical rainforest were CS-selected, and the predominant categories in the evergreen-deciduous broadleaved mixed forest and warm-temperate coniferous-broadleaved mixed forest were CSR and S/CSR categories respectively, whereas those in the cold-temperate coniferous forest were the S-selected ones. Ecological strategy richness of forest vegetation decreased significantly with the increase of latitude. The categories of ecological strategies with more component S increased while those with more component C decreased with the change of typical forest vegetation types from tropical rainforest through evergreen-deciduous broadleaved mixed forest and warm-temperate coniferous-broadleaved mixed forest to cool-temperate coniferous forest. Our findings highlight the usefulness of Grime’s C-S-R scheme for predicting the responses of vegetation to environmental changes, and the results are helpful in further elucidating species coexistence and community assembly in varied climatic and geographic settings.

Ecological Strategy Spectra for Communities of Different Successional Stages in the Tropical Lowland Rainforest of Hainan Island

“…Therefore, more species presented with complex versus simple functional trade-offs in the study communities. This is consistent with the research results of tropical forest ecological strategies in these four climatic zones [52]. Primary and secondary strategies were better represented early in succession, while tertiary strategies were more common during the mid-to-late stages of succession.…”

Adaptive strategy biases in engineered ecosystems: Implications for plant community dynamics and the provisioning of ecosystem services to people

“…However, we recognize that most climate‐driven patterns are reported for individual species, plant communities or common ecosystem typologies (e.g. forests) along a climate gradient (Han et al, 2021; Rosenfield et al, 2019; Sartori et al, 2019), not in aggregate (i.e. spanning biomes and growth forms, which themselves exhibit characteristic adaptive strategy profiles (Pierce et al, 2017) that may obscure climate‐driven patterns).…”

Towards a trait‐based framework for marine macroalgae: Using categorical data to explore the nature of emergent functional groups

“…We chose traits that are readily found in the primary literature, online databases or taxonomical keys that we reasoned would capture the diversity of ecological strategies (defined sensu Han et al (2021) as the suite of functional traits, similar responses to environmental drivers, or similar ecological roles shared by a group a species).…”