volume 2 issue 12 pages 1906-1917

Global trait–environment relationships of plant communities

Helge Bruelheide 1, 2
Jürgen Dengler 2, 3, 4
Oliver Purschke 1, 2
Jonathan Lenoir 5
Borja Jiménez-Alfaro 1, 2, 6
Stephan M. Hennekens 7
Zoltán Botta-Dukát 8
Richard Field 10
Florian Jansen 11
Jens Kattge 2, 12
Franziska Schrodt 10, 12
Miguel D. Mahecha 2, 12
Robert K. Peet 14
Brody Sandel 15
Peter Van Bodegom 16
Jan Altman 17
Esteban Álvarez-Dávila 18
Mohammed A. S. Arfin-Khan 19, 20
Fabio Attorre 21
I. Aubin 22
Jorcely G. Barroso 24
Marijn Bauters 25
Erwin Bergmeier 26
Idoia Biurrun 27
Anne D Bjorkman 28
Benjamin Blonder 29, 30
Andraž Čarni 31, 32
Luis Cayuela 33
Tomas Cerny 34
J. Hans C. Cornelissen 35
Dylan Craven 2, 36
Géraldine Derroire 38
Michele De Sanctis 21
Sandra Díaz 39
Jiří Doležal 17
William Farfan-Rios 40, 41
Ted R. Feldpausch 42
Nicole J. Fenton 43
Eric Garnier 44
Greg R. Guerin 45
Sylvia Haider 1, 2
Tarek Hattab 47
Greg Henry 48
Hugh F. Henry 49, 50
Pedro Higuchi 51
Norbert Hölzel 52
Jürgen Homeier 53
Anke Jentsch 20
Norbert Jürgens 54
Zygmunt Kącki 55
Dirk N. Karger 56, 57
Michael Kessler 56
Michael Kleyer 58
Ilona Knollová 9
Andrey Y. Korolyuk 59
I. Kühn 1, 2, 36
Daniel C. Laughlin 60, 61
Frederic Lens 62
Jacqueline Loos 63
Frédérique Louault 64
Mariyana I Lyubenova 65
Yadvinder Malhi 29
C Marcenò 27
Maurizio Mencuccini 66, 67
Jonas V. Müller 68
JÉRÔME MUNZINGER 69
I. H. Myers-Smith 70
David A. Neill 71
Ülo Niinemets 72
Kate H Orwin 73
Wim A. Ozinga 7, 74
Josep Peñuelas 67, 72, 75
Aaron Pérez-Haase 76, 77
Petr Petřík 17
Oliver L. Phillips 78
Meelis Pärtel 79
Peter B. Reich 80, 81
Arthur V Rodrigues 83
Francesco Maria Sabatini 1, 2
Jordi Sardans 67, 75
MARCO SCHMIDT 84
Gunnar Seidler 1
Javier Eduardo Silva Espejo 85
Marcos Silveira 86
Anita Smyth 45
Maria Sporbert 1, 2
Jens‐Christian Svenning 28
Zhiyao Tang 87
Raquel Thomas 88
Ioannis Tsiripidis 89
Kiril Vassilev 90
Cyrille Violle 44
Risto Virtanen 2, 91, 92
Evan Weiher 93
Erik Welk 1, 2
KARSTEN WESCHE 2, 94, 95
Marten Winter 2
Christian Wirth 2, 12, 96
Ute Jandt 1, 2
15
 
Department of Biology, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, USA
18
 
Escuela de Ciencias Agropecuarias y Ambientales – ECAPMA, Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia – UNAD, Sede José Celestino Mutis, Bogotá, Colombia
30
 
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Crested Butte, USA
38
 
Cirad, UMR EcoFoG, Campus Agronomique, Kourou, French Guiana
64
 
UCA, INRA, VetAgro Sup, UREP, Clermont-Ferrand, France
71
 
Conservación y Manejo de Vida Silvestre, Universidad Estatal Amazónica, Puyo, Ecuador
88
 
Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development, Georgetown, Guyana
94
 
Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Görlitz, Görlitz, Germany
Publication typeJournal Article
Publication date2018-11-19
scimago Q1
wos Q1
SJR4.357
CiteScore19.3
Impact factor14.5
ISSN2397334X
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Ecology
Abstract
Plant functional traits directly affect ecosystem functions. At the species level, trait combinations depend on trade-offs representing different ecological strategies, but at the community level trait combinations are expected to be decoupled from these trade-offs because different strategies can facilitate co-existence within communities. A key question is to what extent community-level trait composition is globally filtered and how well it is related to global versus local environmental drivers. Here, we perform a global, plot-level analysis of trait–environment relationships, using a database with more than 1.1 million vegetation plots and 26,632 plant species with trait information. Although we found a strong filtering of 17 functional traits, similar climate and soil conditions support communities differing greatly in mean trait values. The two main community trait axes that capture half of the global trait variation (plant stature and resource acquisitiveness) reflect the trade-offs at the species level but are weakly associated with climate and soil conditions at the global scale. Similarly, within-plot trait variation does not vary systematically with macro-environment. Our results indicate that, at fine spatial grain, macro-environmental drivers are much less important for functional trait composition than has been assumed from floristic analyses restricted to co-occurrence in large grid cells. Instead, trait combinations seem to be predominantly filtered by local-scale factors such as disturbance, fine-scale soil conditions, niche partitioning and biotic interactions. Although plant functional trait combinations reflect ecological trade-offs at the species level, little is known about how this translates to whole communities. Here, the authors show that global trait composition is captured by two main dimensions that are only weakly related to macro-environmental drivers.
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Bruelheide H. et al. Global trait–environment relationships of plant communities // Nature Ecology and Evolution. 2018. Vol. 2. No. 12. pp. 1906-1917.
GOST all authors (up to 50) Copy
Bruelheide H. et al. Global trait–environment relationships of plant communities // Nature Ecology and Evolution. 2018. Vol. 2. No. 12. pp. 1906-1917.
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BibTex (up to 50 authors) Copy
@article{2018_Bruelheide,
author = {Helge Bruelheide and Jürgen Dengler and Oliver Purschke and Jonathan Lenoir and Borja Jiménez-Alfaro and Stephan M. Hennekens and Zoltán Botta-Dukát and Milan Chytrý and Richard Field and Florian Jansen and Jens Kattge and Valério D. Pillar and Franziska Schrodt and Miguel D. Mahecha and Robert K. Peet and Brody Sandel and Peter Van Bodegom and Jan Altman and Esteban Álvarez-Dávila and Mohammed A. S. Arfin-Khan and Fabio Attorre and I. Aubin and Christopher Baraloto and Jorcely G. Barroso and Marijn Bauters and Erwin Bergmeier and Idoia Biurrun and Anne D Bjorkman and Benjamin Blonder and Andraž Čarni and Luis Cayuela and Tomas Cerny and J. Hans C. Cornelissen and Dylan Craven and Matteo Dainese and Géraldine Derroire and Michele De Sanctis and Sandra Díaz and Jiří Doležal and William Farfan-Rios and Ted R. Feldpausch and Nicole J. Fenton and Eric Garnier and Greg R. Guerin and Alvaro Gutiérrez and Sylvia Haider and Tarek Hattab and Greg Henry and Hugh F. Henry and Pedro Higuchi and others},
title = {Global trait–environment relationships of plant communities},
journal = {Nature Ecology and Evolution},
year = {2018},
volume = {2},
publisher = {Springer Nature},
month = {nov},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0699-8},
number = {12},
pages = {1906--1917},
doi = {10.1038/s41559-018-0699-8}
}
MLA
Cite this
MLA Copy
Bruelheide, Helge, et al. “Global trait–environment relationships of plant communities.” Nature Ecology and Evolution, vol. 2, no. 12, Nov. 2018, pp. 1906-1917. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0699-8.