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Within- and among-species variation in specific leaf area drive community assembly in a tropical cloud forest

  • Community ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Specific leaf area (SLA) is a key functional trait reflecting the trade-off between resource capture and conservation, and has been identified as playing an important role in plant community assembly. Mechanistic models of community assembly state that the assemblage of species in a local community is controlled by environment filters operating on functional traits. We measured within- and among-species variation of SLA, and environmental conditions in a tropical cloud forest to explore how variation in this functional trait contributes to community assembly. SLA variation at the species level was also decomposed into alpha (within assemblage variation), and beta (across assemblage variation) values. SLA decreased with increasing solar irradiance (approximated using plant height) within the three study sites, and differed among the three sites both for within- and among-species comparisons. Mean plot SLA, accounting for both within and among species across the three sites, increased significantly in relation to air temperature but not local photosynthetic photon flux density and soil total phosphorus. Alpha SLA decreased with increasing solar irradiance within the three sites and beta SLA differed among the three sites. Our results clearly demonstrate that light and air temperature are key environmental factors involved in organizing plant species within and among communities in tropical cloud forests. The strong relationship between both intra- and interspecific variation in SLA and environmental conditions strongly confirms the role of trait variation in the assembly of plant species in tropical cloud forest communities via environment filtering related to light availability and air temperature.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Jinqiang Wang from Bawangling Natural Reserve, Dr. Xiaobo Yang and Donghai Li from Hainan University for their help in the field assistance, we are also grateful to Dr. D.D. Ackerly for providing program scripts, and three anonymous reviewers for constructive comments. This work was supported by National Science Foundation of China to R.G. Zang, scholarship grants of Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden to W.X. Long, and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada grant to B.S. Schamp. Our work complied with the current laws of China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of State Forestry Administration, Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Haidian District, Beijing, 100091, China

    Wenxing Long, Runguo Zang & Yi Ding

  2. Department of Biology, Algoma University, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, P6A 2G4, Canada

    Brandon S. Schamp

Authors
  1. Wenxing Long
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  2. Runguo Zang
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  3. Brandon S. Schamp
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  4. Yi Ding
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Correspondence to Runguo Zang.

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Communicated by Bernhard Schmid.

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Long, W., Zang, R., Schamp, B.S. et al. Within- and among-species variation in specific leaf area drive community assembly in a tropical cloud forest. Oecologia 167, 1103–1113 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-2050-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-2050-9

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