Abstract
Bark traits of trees often serve as a key factor determining the community structure of epiphytes. However, the extent to which barks modulate the relative importance of abiotic and biotic assembly processes of epiphytes is poorly understood. Here, using a community phylogenetic approach, we aimed to infer the assembly processes of epiphytic mosses and liverworts on tree species with varying bark traits in a temperate forest of central Japan. We observed a total of 56 moss and 35 liverwort species on 150 trees. Moss communities showed decreasing species richness and a tendency toward phylogenetic overdispersion, that is, higher phylogenetic diversity than expected by chance, in relation to increasing bark roughness and acidity. Along the same bark gradients, liverwort communities became phylogenetically clustered. Species richness of both mosses and liverworts increased with the nitrogen content of barks. The results indicate non-random assembly processes such as abiotic filtering associated with environmental harshness and microhabitat variety determined by barks. Our findings imply that bark traits modulate community assembly processes through which epiphyte diversity is maintained.
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Data availability
The bryophyte community matrix (presence-absence of 91 bryophyte species on 150 trees), the reconstructed bryophyte phylogenetic tree (Newick format), and the bark trait data are available at FigShare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.23673258).
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers and the associate editor (Kyle Palmquist) for thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. We thank Takeshi Saeki and Takayuki Sugimoto for their assistance in the field. We are also grateful to Ryo Kitagawa and Xingfeng Si for their advice on statistical analyses, Yume Imada for her assistance during our pilot survey, Kentaro Fukushima for his advice on chemical analyses, and Yuta Kobayashi for his assistance in making figures.
Funding
ST was supported by the Grant-in-Aids for Research Fellows PD (15J10614) and Young Scientists B (16K18715) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). TO was supported by the Grant-in-Aids for Research Fellows DC2 (16J08907) from the JSPS.
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ST conceived and led the study. All authors conducted the field survey. TO identified the bryophyte species. ST and WAA measured the bark traits. ST analyzed the data. ST wrote the manuscript with inputs from other authors.
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Communicated by Kyle Palmquist.
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Tatsumi, S., Ohgue, T., Azuma, W.A. et al. Bark traits affect epiphytic bryophyte community assembly in a temperate forest. Plant Ecol 224, 1089–1095 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-023-01363-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-023-01363-9