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Quantifying functional trait assembly along a temperate successional gradient with consideration of intraspecific variations and functional groups

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Abstract

Advances in functional trait ecology allow us to evaluate community structure and community assembly in a more quantitative and generalised manner. Functional traits are known to differ greatly across local canopy openness, but previous studies often ignored such intraspecific variations when plant community structures are evaluated. We examined how considerations of canopy openness affect evaluations of community structure along a secondary successional gradient in a temperate climate zone in Japan. For 59 woody species found in nine forest plots aged from ca. 10 to 100 years old, we measured 12 functional traits with considering local canopy openness to capture their intraspecific variations across light gradients. Functional traits varied extensively both within and across species, and intraspecific variations were often tightly correlated with local canopy openness. Niche differentiation between deciduous and evergreen species in resource use strategy, as indicated by leaf mass per area (LMA), was more evident when taking canopy openness into consideration. Community-weighted means of the canopy-layer communities differed from those of the subordinate-layer communities, suggesting another niche differentiation along the vertical light gradient. Functional richness was often greater in the subordinate layer than in the canopy layer due to the co-occurrence of small individuals of canopy species and shade-tolerant specialists. Our study emphasises the importance of canopy openness when evaluating and understanding niche differentiation and forest community structures.

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The dataset is available in Microsoft Excel format as Table S4.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Naoko Tokuchi, Hisashi Hasegawa, Tomoyuki Nakagawa and Masaru Okuda for their logistical support for our research in the Wakayama Research Forest of Kyoto University and would also like to thank the land owners for their permission to conduct this research in their forests. We would also like to thank Daiki Yokoyama, Kiyonori Nakashima, Yuki Tsujii, Waka Saito, Yukihiro Yoshida, Syoko Oguchi, Mana Mukai, Gaku Amada and Atushi Kakimoto for their help during the fieldwork and Michimasa Yamazaki for his help with the NC analyser. We are also grateful to Masahiro Aiba and Madelon Lohbeck for their constructive comments on the early draft.

Funding

This study was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI #26711025 and by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (S-9) of the MOE of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan

    Yuki Nomura, Tomonari Matsuo, Kanehiro Kitayama & Yusuke Onoda

  2. Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Tomonari Matsuo

  3. Faculty of Agriculture, Kochi University, Nankoku, 783-8502, Japan

    Tomoaki Ichie

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  1. Yuki Nomura
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Contributions

YN, KK and YO conceived the ideas and designed methodology. YN, YO and TI collected the data. YN analysed the data. YN, YO and TM led the writing of the manuscript. All authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.

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Correspondence to Yusuke Onoda.

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Nomura, Y., Matsuo, T., Ichie, T. et al. Quantifying functional trait assembly along a temperate successional gradient with consideration of intraspecific variations and functional groups. Plant Ecol 224, 669–682 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-023-01329-x

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