The ecology of a liana community in a SW Chinese rainforest: functional traits, dynamics, and distribution

Abstract

Chapter 1General introduction [5] these processes relate to underlying mechanisms in terms of environmental drivers, functional traits, and strategies. Community spatial structure along the environmental gradientsA major goal of community ecology is to explain why communities change in a systematic fashion across space (McGill et al. 2006). Community is a group of organisms occurring in a particular environment, presumably interacting with each other and with the environment, and identifiable by means of ecological survey from other groups (Tyler-Walters and Hiscock 2003). Species differences in physiological tolerances and competitive ability can lead to species replacement along environmental gradients (Slik et al. 2009). However, there are few community-wide studies on liana distributions, which has hampered our knowledge on the drivers of liana community composition (Schnitzer 2018). While exceptions exist, lianas are considered a fast-growing, light-limited growth form associated with high-light conditions, nutrient-rich soils, and disturbed habitats, including forest edges, canopy gaps, and logged forests (Putz 1984,