Vegetation ecology meets ecosystem science: Permanent grasslands as a functional biogeography case study

Violle, Cyrille; Choler, Philippe; Borgy, Benjamin; Garnier, Éric; Amiaud, Bernard; Debarros, Guilhem; Diquélou, Sylvain; Gachet, Sophie; Jolivet, Claudy; Kattge, Jens; Lavorel, Sandra; Lemauviel‐Lavenant, Servane; Loranger, Jessy; Mikolajczak, Alexis; Munoz, François; Olivier, Jean-Marc; Viovy, Nicolas

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.03.141

Cited by 43 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…These advances will facilitate large‐scale studies focused on functional traits. An important next step for quantifying spatial variation in traits is to predict changes in ecosystem services (Violle, Choler, et al., ) or vegetation dynamics at large spatial scales under global climate change scenarios (Scheiter, Langan, & Higgins, ). However, caution must be used in interpreting some results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This will enable us to evaluate the relative importance of both in driving ecosystem processes, a long‐standing goal of functional ecology (Díaz et al., ; Enquist et al., ; Lavorel, ). In turn, this will help refine structure and simulation of dynamic vegetation models over large spatial scales (Reichstein et al., ) and improve predictions of ecosystem services (Violle, Choler, et al., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spatial patterns and climate relationships of major plant traits in the New World differ between woody and herbaceous species

Šímová

Violle

Svenning

et al. 2018

Journal of Biogeography

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106

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Aim Despite several recent efforts to map plant traits and to identify their climatic drivers, there are still major gaps. Global trait patterns for major functional groups, in particular, the differences between woody and herbaceous plants, have yet to be identified. Here, we take advantage of big data efforts to compile plant species occurrence and trait data to analyse the spatial patterns of assemblage means and variances of key plant traits. We tested whether these patterns and their climatic drivers are similar for woody and herbaceous plants. Location New World (North and South America). Methods Using the largest currently available database of plant occurrences, we provide maps of 200 × 200 km grid‐cell trait means and variances for both woody and herbaceous species and identify environmental drivers related to these patterns. We focus on six plant traits: maximum plant height, specific leaf area, seed mass, wood density, leaf nitrogen concentration and leaf phosphorus concentration. Results For woody assemblages, we found a strong climate signal for both means and variances of most of the studied traits, consistent with strong environmental filtering. In contrast, for herbaceous assemblages, spatial patterns of trait means and variances were more variable, the climate signal on trait means was often different and weaker. Main conclusion Trait variations for woody versus herbaceous assemblages appear to reflect alternative strategies and differing environmental constraints. Given that most large‐scale trait studies are based on woody species, the strikingly different biogeographic patterns of herbaceous traits suggest that a more synthetic framework is needed that addresses how suites of traits within and across broad functional groups respond to climate.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial patterns and climate relationships of major plant traits in the New World differ between woody and herbaceous species

Šímová

Violle

Svenning

et al. 2018

Journal of Biogeography

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106

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“…GSL, defined here as the number of days without snow cover and with air temperatures above 0 °C, is known to be an important driver of grassland functional assembly (Violle et al . ). In alpine ecosystems, variation in snow cover duration along elevation and mesotopographic gradients is a key driver of plant distribution and community composition (Evans et al .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Spatial scale and intraspecific trait variability mediate assembly rules in alpine grasslands

et al. 2016

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Summary 1.Assembly of grassland communities has long been scrutinized through the lens of functional diversity. Studies generally point to an overwhelming influence of climate on observed patterns of functional diversity, despite experimental evidence demonstrating the importance of biotic interactions. We postulate that this is because most observational studies neglect both scale dependencies of assembly processes and phenotypic variation between individuals. Here, we test for changes in the importance of abiotic filtering and biotic interactions along a stress gradient by explicitly accounting for different scales. In addition to quantifying intraspecific trait variability (ITV), we also vary the two components of spatial scale, including grain (i.e. community size) and extent (i.e. the geographical area that defines the species pool). 2.We sampled 20 grassland communities in ten sites distributed along a 975-m elevation gradient. At each site, we measured seven functional traits for a total of 2020 individuals at different spatial grains. We related community functional diversity metrics to the main environmental gradient of our study area, growing season length (GSL), and assessed the dependence of these relationships on spatial grain, spatial extent and ITV.3. At large spatial grain and extent, the imprint of environmental filtering on functional diversity became more important with increasing stress (i.e. functional diversity decreased with shorter GSL). At small spatial grain and extent, we found a convex relationship between functional diversity and GSL congruent with the hypothesis that competition is dominant at low-stress levels while facilitative interactions are dominant at high-stress levels (i.e. high functional diversity at both extremes of the stress gradient). Importantly, the effect of intraspecific variability on assembly rules was noticeable only at small spatial grain and extent.4. Synthesis. Our study reveals how the combination of abiotic stress and biotic interactions shapes the functional diversity of alpine grasslands at different spatial scales, and highlights the importance of phenotype variation between individuals for community assembly processes at fine spatial scale. Our results suggest that studies analysing trait-based assembly rules but ignoring ITV and focusing on a single spatial scale are likely to miss essential features of community diversity patterns.

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“…Moreover, if traits that are selected are highly correlated with each other, then the 'true' functional distinctiveness, which may become evident if other traits or combinations of traits were considered, can be obscured. It is also important to note that, although trait databases have emerged in many different kingdoms [83][84][85][86], they are often biased towards traits measured on common species [87][88][89], which can impede an accurate assessment of functional distinctiveness.…”

Section: Box 1 From the Rarity Of Species To The Rarity Of Functionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional Rarity: The Ecology of Outliers

Violle

Thuiller

Mouquet

et al. 2017

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

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370

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Rarity has been a central topic for conservation and evolutionary biologists with the ultimate goal of determining the species characteristics that cause extinction risk. More recently, beyond the rarity of species, the rarity of functions or functional traits, called functional rarity, has gained momentum in helping to understand the impact of biodiversity decline on ecosystem functioning. However a conceptual framework for defining and quantifying functional rarity is still lacking. Here, we introduce twelve different forms of functional rarity along gradients of species scarcity and trait distinctiveness. We then highlight the potential key role of functional rarity in the long-*

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Vegetation ecology meets ecosystem science: Permanent grasslands as a functional biogeography case study

Cited by 43 publications

References 67 publications

Spatial patterns and climate relationships of major plant traits in the New World differ between woody and herbaceous species

Spatial patterns and climate relationships of major plant traits in the New World differ between woody and herbaceous species

Spatial scale and intraspecific trait variability mediate assembly rules in alpine grasslands

Functional Rarity: The Ecology of Outliers

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