Spatially Explicit Metrics of Species Diversity, Functional Diversity, and Phylogenetic Diversity: Insights into Plant Community Assembly Processes

Wiegand, Thorsten; Uriarte, María; Kraft, Nathan J. B.; Shen, Guochun; Wang, Xugao; He, Fangliang

doi:10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-110316-022936

Cited by 64 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 106 publications

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“…Conversely, many trait‐based ecology studies to date disregard the fine‐scale spatial structure of the community in question (reviewed in Wiegand et al. ) and focus on a small number of relatively easy to measure traits such as specific leaf area (SLA), plant height, seed size, and wood density (Silvertown , Kraft et al. , Cornwell and Ackerly , Swenson et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling the functional trait correlates of spatial aggregation in tropical forest trees

McFadden

Bartlett

Wiegand

et al. 2019

Ecology

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Environmental filtering and dispersal limitation can both maintain diversity in plant communities by aggregating conspecifics, but parsing the contribution of each process has proven difficult empirically. Here, we assess the contribution of filtering and dispersal limitation to the spatial aggregation patterns of 456 tree species in a hyperdiverse Amazonian forest and find distinct functional trait correlates of interspecific variation in these processes. Spatial point process model analysis revealed that both mechanisms are important drivers of intraspecific aggregation for the majority of species. Leaf drought tolerance was correlated with species topographic distributions in this aseasonal rainforest, showing that future increases in drought severity could significantly impact community structure. In addition, seed mass was associated with the spatial scale and density of dispersal‐related aggregation. Taken together, these results suggest environmental filtering and dispersal limitation act in concert to influence the spatial and functional structure of diverse forest communities.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling the functional trait correlates of spatial aggregation in tropical forest trees

McFadden

Bartlett

Wiegand

et al. 2019

Ecology

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“…Understanding the relative strength of interspecific interactions is one of the key goals of community ecology, and the null model approach has been popular for characterising spatial point patterns of (predominantly) diverse plant communities (e.g. Chacón‐Labella et al, ; Lan et al, ; Martinez, Wiegand, Gonzalez‐Taboada, & Obeso, ; Perry et al, ; Velázquez, Paine, May, & Wiegand, ; Wang et al, ; Wiegand et al, ; Wiegand et al, ). However, there has been little guidance on when a given test is likely to be able to detect species associations that are present.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result, we believe the spatial tests for independence should act as exploratory studies to highlight potentially significant species interactions, but understanding their biological importance requires different methods. As an alternative, model‐based approaches, either in the form we use here (which include the familiar Thomas Cluster models) or birth‐death models (May, Huth, & Wiegand, ; Rajala, Murrell, & Olhede, ) could also be applied to the inference of biological interactions from point pattern data (Wiegand et al, ). Model fitting will normally lead to estimation of parameters that can also be estimated in the field (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A particular focus on the role of competition can be found in plant ecology, not least because plants seem to require the same few nutrients (Silvertown, ), but also because their sessile nature might permit an understanding of processes from the spatial pattern of individuals (Murrell, Purves, & Law, ), and allow for easier experimental manipulation (Goldberg & Barton, ). Multiple methods exist to detect interspecific interactions but in non‐manipulative field conditions there are often only two choices, both of which rely upon data where the location, identity, and often size of every individual is recorded (Wiegand et al, ). The first option is to fit growth and/or survival models that take into account the identity and size of nearby neighbours (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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When do we have the power to detect biological interactions in spatial point patterns?

2018

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Uncovering the roles of biotic interactions in assembling and maintaining species‐rich communities remains a major challenge in ecology. In plant communities, interactions between individuals of different species are expected to generate positive or negative spatial interspecific associations over short distances. Recent studies using individual‐based point pattern datasets have concluded that (a) detectable interspecific interactions are generally rare, but (b) are most common in communities with fewer species; and (c) the most abundant species tend to have the highest frequency of interactions. However, it is unclear how the detection of spatial interactions may change with the abundances of each species, or the scale and intensity of interactions. We ask if statistical power is sufficient to explain all three key results. We use a simple two‐species model, assuming no habitat associations, and where the abundances, scale and intensity of interactions are controlled to simulate point pattern data. In combination with an approximation to the variance of the spatial summary statistics that we sample, we investigate the power of current spatial point pattern methods to correctly reject the null model of pairwise species independence. We show the power to detect interactions is positively related to both the abundances of the species tested, and the intensity and scale of interactions, but negatively related to imbalance in abundances. Differences in detection power in combination with the abundance distributions found in natural communities are sufficient to explain all the three key empirical results, even if all pairwise interactions are identical. Critically, many hundreds of individuals of both species may be required to detect even intense interactions, implying current abundance thresholds for including species in the analyses are too low. Sy n thesis. The widespread failure to reject the null model of spatial interspecific independence could be due to low power of the tests rather than any key biological process. Since we do not model habitat associations, our results represent a first step in quantifying sample sizes required to make strong statements about the role of biotic interactions in diverse plant communities. However, power should be factored into analyses and considered when designing empirical studies.

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“…Given that spatial patterns are generally thought to be governed by plant–plant interactions at small scales (Stoyan and Penttinen , Wiegand et al. ), analyzing local species richness from a plant‐eye‐view perspective in large mapped plots via spatial statistical analyses could increase our understanding of local diversity maintenance (Murrell et al. , Perry et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns of local species richness and their associations with functional traits in a 60‐ha tropical forest dynamics plot

Zang

et al. 2019

Ecosphere

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Understanding the underlying mechanisms of diversity maintenance in tropics remains a challenge for ecologists. To reveal the underlying mechanism from a plant‐eye‐view perspective, we examined the patterns of local species richness which was defined as the number of species around individuals of a target species within circles of different radii and their correlations with major plant functional traits in a tropical montane rainforest. In 2012, we established a 60‐ha forest dynamics plot (FDP) in tropical montane rainforest on Hainan Island, China. In 2013, we measured eight functional traits (specific leaf area [SLA], leaf dry matter content [LDMC], wood density, potential maximum height, leaf carbon content [LCC], leaf nitrogen content [LNC], leaf phosphorus content [LPC], and leaf potassium content) of all the species in the FDP. Based on all the mapped individuals that had a diameter at breast height ≥10 cm, we utilized individual species–area relationships function (ISARs(r)) combined with the heterogeneous Poisson null model to quantify the patterns of local species richness at scales from 1 to 50 m. Regression analysis was used to determine which functional traits could influence the local diversity pattern. Results showed that the 123 ISARs(r) curves were relatively similar and no species seemed to be extremely higher or lower than the average of all the ISARs(r) curves. The percentage of species that behaved predominantly as accumulators or repellers or neutrally was 42.23%, 13.82%, and 43.9% at scale of <30 m, respectively. But at scales ≥30 m, more than 70% of all species behaved neutrally suggesting that facilitative interactions probably occurred when neighborhoods were <30 m apart. Among the eight measured traits, the SLA, LNC, and LPC were negatively associated with local species richness. Our results indicated that (1) the spatial community structure was not controlled by key species; (2) facilitative interactions played an important role in local diversity maintenance; (3) species with conservative functional trait syndromes were more likely to have relatively high local species richness in the tropical montane rainforest on Hainan Island, China.

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Spatially Explicit Metrics of Species Diversity, Functional Diversity, and Phylogenetic Diversity: Insights into Plant Community Assembly Processes

Cited by 64 publications

References 106 publications

Disentangling the functional trait correlates of spatial aggregation in tropical forest trees

Disentangling the functional trait correlates of spatial aggregation in tropical forest trees

When do we have the power to detect biological interactions in spatial point patterns?

Patterns of local species richness and their associations with functional traits in a 60‐ha tropical forest dynamics plot

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