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103 results for “Trait composition”
Data from: Bovine tuberculosis disturbs functional trait composition in African buffalo
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Data from: Intraspecific variation in host plant traits mediates taxonomic and functional composition of local insect herbivore communities
<p class="abstract_para">Host plant phenotypic traits affect the structure of the associated consumer community and mediate species interactions. We compare herbivore assemblages from the canopy of the phenotypically variable tree <em class="fi">Metrosideros polymorpha</em> on Hawai'i Island. Multiple distinct varieties of <em class="fi">M. polymorpha</em> frequently co‐occur, with variation in morphological traits. Using this system, we identify host and insect traits that underlie patterns of herbivore abundance and quantify the strength of host‐insect trait interactions.</p> <p class="abstract_para">The dataset includes host plant phenotypic traits (specific leaf area, leaf water content, foliar nutrients, trichome presence), as well as collection information. The dataset also contains the herbivorous insect community associated with this host plant, their abundances and life history traits. R code for analyses in this article is also included.</p>
Data from: The interaction of phylogeny and community structure: linking the community composition and trait evolution of clades
Aim. Community phylogenetic studies use information about species' evolutionary relationships to understand the ecological processes of community assembly. A central premise of the field is that species' evolution maps onto ecological patterns, and phylogeny reveals something more than species' traits alone about ecological mechanisms structuring communities such as environmental filtering, competition, and facilitation. We argue, therefore, that there is a need to better understand and model the interaction of phylogeny with species' traits and community composition. Innovation. We outline a new approach that identifies clades that are eco-phylogenetically clustered or overdispersed, and then assesses whether those clades have different rates of trait evolution. Eco-phylogenetic theory would predict that the traits of clustered or overdispersed clades might have evolved differently, either in terms of tempo (fast or slow) or mode (e.g., under constraint or neutrally). We suggest that modelling the evolution of independent trait data in these clades represents a strong test of whether there is an association between species' ecological co-occurrence patterns and evolutionary history. Main conclusions. Using an empirical dataset of mammals from around the world, we identify two clades of rodents whose species tend not to co-occur in the same local assemblages (are phylogenetically overdispersed), and then find independent evidence of slower rates of body mass evolution in these clades. Our approach, which assumes nothing about the mode of species' trait evolution but rather seeks to explain it using ecological information, presents a new way to examine eco-phylogenetic structure.
Data from: Re-growing a tropical dry forest: functional plant trait composition and community assembly during succession
A longstanding goal of ecology and conservation biology is to understand the environmental and biological controls of forest succession. However, the patterns and mechanisms that guide successional trajectories, especially within tropical forests, remain unclear. We collected leaf functional trait and abiotic data across a 110-year chronosequence within a tropical dry forest in Costa Rica. Focusing on six key leaf functional traits related to resource acquisition and competition, along with measures of forest stand structure, we propose a mechanistic framework to link species composition, community trait distributions, and forest structure. We quantified the community-weighted trait distributions for specific leaf area, leaf dry matter concentration, leaf phosphorus concentration, leaf carbon to nitrogen ratio, and leaf stable isotopic carbon and nitrogen. We assessed several prominent hypotheses for how these functional measures shift in response to changing environmental variables (soil water content, bulk density and pH) across the chronosequence. Increasingly, older forests differed significantly from younger forests in species composition, above ground biomass and shifted trait distributions. Early stages of succession were uniformly characterized by lower values of community-weighted mean specific leaf area, leaf stable nitrogen isotope, and leaf phosphorus concentration. Leaf dry matter concentration and leaf carbon to nitrogen ratio were lower during earlier stages of succession, and each trait reached an optimum during intermediate stages of succession. The leaf carbon isotope ratio was the only trait to decrease linearly with increasing stand age indicating reduced water use efficiency in older forests. However, in contrast to expectations, community-weighted trait variances did not generally change through succession, and when compared to null expectations were lower than expected. The observed directional shift in community-weighted mean trait values is consistent with the 'productivity filtering' hypothesis where a directional shift in water and light availability shifts physiological strategies from 'slow' to 'fast'. In contrast to expectations arising from niche based ecology, none of the community trait distributions were over-dispersed. Instead, patterns of trait dispersion are consistent with the abiotic filtering and/or competitive hierarchy hypotheses.
Data from: Insect herbivory in novel Quercus ilex L. forests: the role of landscape attributes, forest composition and host traits
<p><b><i>Context</i></b> Understanding the intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of herbivory in novel expanding forests is essential to envisage their role for biodiversity conservation.</p> <p><b><i>Aims</i></b>: To analyze the effects of landscape attributes, forest composition, genetic relatedness, ontogeny and leaf traits on insect herbivory in novel <i>Q. ilex</i> forest stands.</p> <p><b><i>Methods: </i></b>In 15 forest patches, we examined effects of patch size and connectivity, forest composition, and tree height, specific leaf area (SLA) and nitrogen content on herbivory. In 3 forest patches, we assessed effects of tree genetic relatedness, ontogeny and spatial distribution.</p> <p><b><i>Results</i></b>: Herbivory was lower in pine-oak than in mixed-oak forests owing to the shorter tree height in the former with no effects of patch size or connectivity. Herbivory increased with SLA whereas nitrogen content had no effect. Within patches, herbivory differed among genetic clusters and was reduced in saplings growing near mature oaks and individuals near the forest edge. </p> <p><b><i>Conclusion </i></b>We illustrate the strong context and scale dependence of tree-herbivore interactions that renders predictions for dynamic systems such as novel oak forests extremely challenging. It implies, however, that the structural heterogeneity of such unmanaged forests allows their function as stepping stones for insect herbivore diversity in fragmented landscapes.</p>
Data from: Intraspecific trait changes have large impacts on community functional composition but do not affect ecosystem function
<p>1. Plant functional traits can provide a mechanistic understanding of community responses to global change and of community effects on ecosystem functions. Nitrogen enrichment typically shifts trait composition by promoting the dominance of acquisitive plants (high specific leaf area [SLA] and low leaf dry matter content [LDMC]), translating into high biomass production. Changes in mean trait values can be due to shifts in species identity, relative abundances and/or intraspecific trait values. However, we do not know the relative importance of these shifts in determining trait responses to environmental changes, or trait effects on ecosystem functioning, such as biomass production. </p> <p><br> 2. We quantified the relative importance of species composition, abundance and intraspecific shifts in driving variation in SLA and LDMC, and how these shifts affected above- and belowground biomass. We measured traits in a grassland experiment manipulating nitrogen fertilisation, plant species richness, foliar fungal pathogen removal and sown functional composition (slow vs. fast species). We fitted structural equation models to test the importance of abundance and intraspecific shifts in determining 1) responses of functional composition to treatments and 2) effects on above and belowground biomass.</p> <p> <br> 3. We found that species intraspecific shifts were as important as abundance shifts in determining change in functional composition (community weighted mean trait values), and even had large effects compared to substantial initial variation in sown trait composition. Intraspecific trait shifts resulted in convergence towards intermediate SLA in diverse communities; although convergence was reduced by nitrogen addition and enhanced by pathogen removal. In contrast, large intraspecific shifts in LDMC were not influenced by the treatments. However, despite large responses, intraspecific trait shifts had no effect on above or belowground biomass. Only interspecific trait variation affected functioning: belowground biomass was reduced by SLA and increased by LDMC, while aboveground biomass was increased by SLA. </p> <p><br> 4. Our results add to a growing body of literature showing large species intraspecific trait variation and emphasise the importance of using field sampled data to determine community functional composition. However, they also show that intraspecific variation does not necessarily affect ecosystem functioning and therefore response-effect trait relationships may differ between vs. within species.</p>
Phytogeographic origin determines Tropical Montane Cloud Forest hydraulic trait composition
<p>Tropical montane cloud forests (TMCF) have unique climatic conditions, which allow the coexistence of plant lineages with different phytogeographic origins from tropical versus temperate climates. Future climate projections suggest TMCFs will be subjected to increasing drought stress due to fog uplift and higher temperatures, possibly leading to tree mortality and local extinctions, and consequently changes in forest composition and functioning. Characterising community functional composition, trade-offs among traits and the drivers of community assembly is of utmost importance to improve our capacity to predict the response of montane plant communities to forecast climate change.</p> <p>Here, we aimed to test if species from different phytogeographic origins (i.e. tropical - evergreen x deciduous - and temperate) differ in drought vulnerability and how the co-existence of these groups change the hydraulic composition of TMCF`s. We used a framework based on measurements of key hydraulic traits (i.e. xylem embolism resistance, hydraulic safety margin, stomata control, turgor loss point, minimum water potential) of 16 dominant species (> 70% of the forest basal area) within a TMCF in the Atlantic Rain Forest Domain in southeast Brazil. We used community-weighted means to model whether removing each species group would change the community hydraulic functional composition.</p> <p>Temperate, tropical deciduous and tropical evergreen groups differ in their hydraulic functioning and these differences explain forest functional composition and taxa dominance. Temperate and tropical deciduous taxa were consistently more vulnerable hydraulically (i.e. lower safety margins and embolism resistance). The coexistence of different phytogeographic lineages is a key determinant of TMCF hydraulic composition. We also used models including phylogeny to evaluate the variation of hydraulic traits across Phytogeographic groups, and the results suggest some niche conservatism associated with plant hydraulic functioning.</p> <p>Our results provide evidence of the importance of species phytogeographic origin on TMCF functioning, and niche conservatism in the evolution of hydraulic traits. The higher drought vulnerability observed in temperate group might be a mechanistic explanation for the expansion of temperate taxa distribution to wetter places during past colder and drier climate. Thus, we suggest hydraulic functional traits may be useful to predict future dynamics of TMCFs under changing climatic conditions.</p>
Data from: Ant community composition and functional traits in newly established grasslands within agricultural landscapes
<p>Ongoing intensification and fragmentation of European agricultural landscapes dramatically reduce biodiversity and associated functions. Enhancing perennial non-crop areas holds great potential to support ecosystem services such as ant mediated pest control.</p> <p>To study the potential of newly established grassland strips to enhance ant diversity and associated functions, we used hand collection data and predation experiments to investigate differences in (a) ant community composition (b) biocontrol related functional traits, and (c) natural pest control across habitats in cereal fields, old grasslands, and new grassland transects of three years age. </p> <p>Whilst all data regarding biocontrol related functional traits of ant species (b) are available within the publication and its supporting information files, we provide here our raw data of ant species activity and diversity surveys (a) and further the results of sticky card experiments as a proxy for biocontrol potential (c).</p>
Community composition and species traits and plot positions
<p><span><span><span><span>Biodiversity decline and its cascading effects through trophic interactions pose a severe threat to ecosystem service worldwide. Within a synthetic conceptual framework for beta-diversity, we proposed a series of hypotheses related to multi-trophic community assembly in subtropical forests. Our results suggested that, resulting from niche-based bottom-up dynamics, producer dissimilarities are predominant in structuring consumer dissimilarity, the degree of which highly depends on the trophic dependency, the diversity facet and the data quality. More importantly, we detected a significant dynamic between niche-based processes (e.g. environmental filtering and competitive exclusion) with the increasing producer dissimilarity. These findings enrich our mechanistic understanding of the 'Diversity Begets Diversity' rule and the complexity of multi-trophic community assembly, which is fundamental and critical for sustainable biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management.</span></span></span></span></p>
Litter and root traits control soil microbial composition and enzyme activities in 28 common subtropical tree species
<p><span>1. </span><span>Plant trait-based approaches are frequently used to explore the linkages between aboveground plant communities and belowground ecosystem functions. However, the role of plant leaf litter and living root traits in driving soil microbial biomass, community composition, and enzyme activities has rarely been explored.</span></p> <p><span>2. </span><span>Here, we measured the soil microbial biomass, community composition and enzyme activities related to carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) acquisition under three-year-old monocultures of 28 common subtropical tree species in China.</span></p> <p><span>3. </span><span>We found that plant leaf litter and absorptive root traits, including leaf litter C content, litter water holding capacity, and root N content, were the three best predictors for soil microbial biomass and enzyme activities. In particular, resource-exploitative tree species with higher root N contents were associated with microbial communities with lower fungi to bacteria ratios and lower C- and P-acquisition enzyme activities. Tree species with higher leaf litter water holding capacity were associated with microbial resource acquisition strategies for C and P acquisition.</span></p> <p><span>4. </span><span>Synthesis: Our findings highlighted that plant leaf litter and root traits are important for mechanistically understanding the ecological linkage between the plant community and ecosystem functions.</span></p>
Plant community composition and traits modulate the impacts of drought intensity on soil microbial community composition and function
<p>Terrestrial ecosystems are increasingly threatened by extreme drought events. Soil microbial communities are central to terrestrial ecosystem function via their role in regulating biogeochemical cycling. Consequently, the impact of increasingly intense drought events on soil microbial communities will have knock-on effects for how ecosystems cope with climate change. In an outdoor grassland mesocosm experiment, we determined how increasing drought intensity affects bacterial and fungal community composition, and functioning, during and after drought. We also tested whether plant community resource acquisition strategy (fast- versus slow-strategy plant communities), plant community composition, and plant functional traits mediate soil microbial responses to increasing drought intensity. We found that increasing drought intensity markedly shifted bacterial and fungal community composition, and these effects persisted until the end of the experiment (two months after re-wetting). Bacterial and fungal communities that experienced severe droughts did not return to baseline composition, while those that experienced a mild drought did. Microbial community functioning (potential extracellular enzyme activity) was reduced at peak drought and shortly after re-wetting. While drought intensity effects on bacterial or fungal communities were insensitive to plant community resource acquisition strategy, functional group abundance (aboveground biomass of grass or forb plant species) composition (grass:forb ratio) and leaf traits (leaf dry matter content and leaf nitrogen concentration) explained significant variation in bacterial and fungal community composition during and after drought. Notably, plant community leaf dry matter content and soil nitrogen were the key factors mediating the effect of increasing drought intensity on microbial indicator taxa (ASVs). We conclude that increasing drought intensity affects grassland soil microbial communities during and after drought, and this impact is influenced by plant community composition and functional traits.</p>
Catchment properties and the photosynthetic trait composition of freshwater plant communities
Unlike in land plants, photosynthesis in many aquatic plants relies on bicarbonate in addition to carbon dioxide (CO2) to compensate for the low diffusivity and potential depletion of CO2 in water. Concentrations of bicarbonate and CO2 vary greatly with catchment geology. In this study, we investigate whether there is a link between these concentrations and the frequency of freshwater plants possessing the bicarbonate use trait. We show, globally, that the frequency of plant species with this trait increases with bicarbonate concentration. Regionally, however, the frequency of bicarbonate use is reduced at sites where the CO2 concentration is substantially above the air equilibrium, consistent with this trait being an adaptation to carbon limitation. Future anthropogenic changes of bicarbonate and CO2 concentrations may alter the species compositions of freshwater plant communities.
Data from: BIOVERA-Tree: tree diversity, community composition, forest structure and functional traits along gradients of forest-use intensity and elevation in Veracruz, Mexico
<p>Here, we describe BIOVERA-Tree, a database on tree diversity, community composition, forest structure, and functional traits collected in 120 forest plots distributed along an extensive elevational gradient in Veracruz State, Mexico. BIOVERA-Tree includes information on forest structure from three levels of forest-use intensity, namely old-growth, degraded, and secondary forest, replicated across eight elevations from sea-level to near the tree line at 3500 m and on size and location of 4549 tree individuals with a diameter at breast height ≥ 5 cm belonging to 216 species, 154 genera, and 80 families. We also report measurements of eight functional traits, namely wood density for 143 species, maximum height for 216 species and leaf traits including: specific leaf area, lamina density, leaf thickness, chlorophyll content, and leaf area for 148 species and leaf dry matter content for 145 species.</p>
Species composition and functional trait data for wet pine savannas
<p>Trait differences among plant species can favor species coexistence. The role that such differences play in the assembly of diverse plant communities maintained by frequent fires remains unresolved. This lack of resolution results in part from the possibility that species with similar traits may coexist because none has a significant fitness advantage and in part from the difficulty of experimental manipulation of highly diverse assemblages dominated by perennial species.</p> <p>We examined a 65-year chronosequence of losses of herbaceous species following fire suppression (and subsequent encroachment by <i>Pinus elliottii</i>) in three wet longleaf pine savannas. We used cluster analysis, similarity profile permutation tests and k-R cluster analysis to identify statistically significant functional groups. We then used randomization tests to determine if the absence of functional groups near pines was greater (or less) than expected by chance. We also tested whether tolerant and sensitive species were less (or more) likely to co-occur by chance in areas in savannas away from pines in accordance with predictions of modern coexistence theory.</p> <p>Functional group richness near pines was lower than expected from random species extirpations. Wetland perennials with thick rhizomes and high leaf water content, spring-flowering wetland forbs (including <i>Drosera tracyi</i>), orchids, <i>Polygala</i> spp., and club mosses were more likely to be absent near pines than expected by chance. C3 grasses and sedges with seed banks and tall, fall-flowering C4 grasses were less likely to be absent near pines than expected by chance. Species sensitive to pine encroachment were more likely to co-occur with other such species away from pines at two of the three sites.</p> <p>Results suggest that herb species diversity in frequently-burned wet savannas is maintained in part by a weak fitness (e.g., competitive) hierarchy among herbs, and not as a result of trait differences among co-occurring species.</p>
Spore traits mediate disturbance effects on AM fungal community composition and mutualisms
<p>Trait-based approaches in ecology are powerful tools for understanding how organisms interact with their environment. These approaches show particular promise in disturbance and community ecology contexts for understanding how disturbances like prescribed fire and bison grazing influence interactions between mutualists like AM fungi and their plant hosts. In this work, we examined how disturbance effects on AM fungal spore community composition and mutualisms were mediated by selection for specific functional spore traits at both the species and community level. We tested these questions by analyzing AM fungal spore communities and traits from a frequently burned and grazed (bison) tallgrass prairie system and using these spores to inoculate a plant growth response experiment. Selection for darker, pigmented AM fungal spores, changes in the abundance and volume of individual AM fungal taxa, and altered sporulation, were indicators of fire and grazing effects on AM fungal community composition. Disturbance-associated changes in AM fungal community composition were then correlated with altered growth responses of <em>Schizachyrium scoparium</em> grass. Our work shows that utilization of trait-based approaches in ecology can clarify the mechanisms that underly belowground responses to disturbance, and provide a useful framework for understanding interactions between organisms and their environment.</p>
Catchment properties and the photosynthetic trait composition of freshwater plant communities
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Phytogeographic origin determines Tropical Montane Cloud Forest hydraulic trait composition
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Species composition and functional trait data for wet pine savannas
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Litter and root traits control soil microbial composition and enzyme activities in 28 common subtropical tree species
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Data from: Structural, compositional and trait differences between native and non-native dominated grassland patches
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