Climatic drivers of trait assembly in woody plants in Japan

Abstract

Aim A trait‐based biogeographical approach can be used to shed light on species‐sorting mechanisms that are driven by the interactions between species traits and abiotic conditions along large‐scale gradients. We tested the hypothesis that geographical patterns of woody plant assemblages are driven largely by environmental filtering, in relation to climate harshness and seasonality, acting on key functional traits. Location Japanese archipelago. Methods Using a large‐scale grid‐based dataset of 773 woody species and five functional traits measured in the field, spanning the Japanese archipelago, we analysed the influence of climate harshness (absolute minimum temperature and precipitation of driest month) and climate seasonality (temperature and precipitation seasonality, and the length of period suitable for photosynthesis) on three aspects of community trait structure: community mean trait values, functional richness and functional divergence. To confirm whether the influence of climate‐based species sorting on functional structure was stronger than the impact of dispersal limitation, we used null models that did or did not account for the difference in regional species pools as a result of vicariance. Results While climate harshness and historical dispersal limitation had a some influence on trait structure, temperature seasonality played a significant role. Greater seasonality was associated with functional similarity in wood density and leaf nitrogen concentration, but also contributed to increased diversity in leaf thickness, specific leaf area and maximum height. Main conclusions Our results demonstrate the importance of climate harshness and seasonality in shaping the geographical variation of functional trait structures in woody plant assemblages, while we found that species richness decreases with increasing climate harshness. Climate seasonality results in the convergence and divergence of co‐occurring traits across different vegetation zones. This suggests that seasonal environmental variability acts not only as a filter of species traits but also as a driver creating a greater difference in functional strategies among woody plant species.

Effects of climate, soil, forest structure and land use on the functional composition of the understorey in Italian forests

“…Climate was shown to exert the greatest independent effect on SLA, H and SM. This result is in line with several studies conducted in forest ecosystems (Shiono et al., ; Swenson & Weiser, ; Vanneste et al., ) and confirms the role of climate as a primary macro filter shaping the community mean plant traits. Local environmental factors alone (namely, soil, land use and forest structure) showed a minor role in influencing understorey traits.…”

“…These studies found climate to be the primary macro filter acting on the functional structure of tree communities (Shiono et al., ; Swenson & Weiser, ). In detail, variables related to climate harshness (minimum/maximum temperature and precipitation) and seasonality (temperature and precipitation seasonality) showed a pervasive effect on key functional traits related to fundamental plant strategies (i.e., specific leaf area, seed mass, plant height; Swenson & Weiser, ; Shiono et al., ). However, local soil properties play a significant role in determining community traits at large scales, both alone and in interaction with climate (Ordonez et al., ; Simpson, Richardson, & Laughlin, ).…”

How well are biodiversity drivers reflected in protected areas? A representativeness assessment of the geohistorical gradients that shaped endemic flora in Japan

“…Conversely, protected areas are relatively scarce in areas of moderate and low elevation (except for coastal areas) and, consequently, not representative of the broader geographical pattern of vascular plant biodiversity. These results indicate that Japan's existing protected areas neither efficiently nor effectively conserve plant diversity associated with a variety of different habitat conditions or functional niches Shiono et al 2015). Although criticizing the current design of Japan's protected areas network may not be helpful, it is important to propose a conservation scheme based on Fig.…”

Geographical patterns and environmental drivers of functional diversity and trait space of amphibians of Europe

“…Macroecological analyses often describe large scale patterns of species richness (Hawkins et al, ; Jablonski, Huang, Roy, & Valentine, ; Kinlock et al, ), range size (Orme et al, ), and more recently patterns of species traits such a s body size and diet (Gainsbury, Meiri, & Lenoir, ; Olson et al, ; Rodrigues, Olalla‐Tárraga, Iverson, & Diniz‐Filho, ) and community assembly rules, like competition and environmental filtering (Karadimou, Tsiripidis, Kallimanis, Raus, & Dimopoulos, ; Ramm et al, ; Shiono et al, ). Multiple underlying mechanisms have been proposed to explain all these patterns highlighting the roles of climate and energy availability (Evans, Warren, & Gaston, ), landscape heterogeneity (Davies et al, ; Kerr, Southwood, & Cihlar, ; Yoshioka, Fukasawa, Mishima, Sasaki, & Kadoya, ), environmental stability or climate seasonality (Carrara & Vázquez, ) and human pressures (Davies et al, ).…”