The Influence of Taxonomy and Environment on Leaf Trait Variation Along Tropical Abiotic Gradients

Oliveras I.; Bentley L.; Fyllas N.M.; Gvozdevaite A.; Shenkin A.F.; Peprah T.; Morandi P.; Peixoto K.S.; Boakye M.; Adu-Bredu S.; Schwantes Marimon B.; Marimon Junior B.H.; Salinas N.; Martin R.; Asner G.; Díaz S.; Enquist B.J.; Malhi Y. · Frontiers in Forests and Global Change (2020) · DOI: 10.3389/ffgc.2020.00018

Resumen

Deconstructing functional trait variation and co-variation across a wide range of environmental conditions is necessary to increase the mechanistic understanding of community assembly processes and improve current parameterization of dynamic vegetation models. Here, we present a study that deconstructs leaf trait variation and co-variation into within-species, taxonomic-, and plot-environment components along three tropical environmental gradients in Peru, Brazil, and Ghana. To do so, we measured photosynthetic, chemical, and structural leaf traits using a standardized sampling protocol for more than 1,000 individuals belonging to 367 species. Variation associated with the taxonomic component (species + genus + family) for most traits was relatively consistent across environmental gradients, but within-species variation and plot-environment variation was strongly dependent on the environmental gradient. Trait-trait co-variation was strongly linked to the environmental gradient where traits were measured, although some traits had consistent co-variation components irrespective of gradient. Our results demonstrate that filtering along these tropical gradients is mostly expressed through trait taxonomic variation, but that trait co-variation is strongly dependent on the local environment, and thus global trait co-variation relationships might not always apply at smaller scales and may quickly change under future climate scenarios. © Copyright