Functional Diversity of Subalpine Bryophyte Communities in an Oceanic Island (La Réunion)

Abstract

International audienceIncreasing temperature imperils worldwide tropical subalpine and alpine ecosystems with the threat of mountaintop extinctions and a subsequent loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. This paper provides a first assessment of functional diversity along a high climatic gradient for bryophytes, which represent a major plant compartment in these ecosystems. The present study takes place on the highlands of the Piton des Neiges volcano, the highest summit of La Réunion Island (Western Indian Ocean). We find a relatively high species richness of bryophytes in these subalpine habitats, with a peak of diversity at 2750 m for the ground-dwelling community. We report a strong linear relationship between functional diversity and species richness for epiphytes. Within the same plant group, the relationship between functional richness, based on eight traits, and elevation differed between the ground-dwelling and epiphytic communities, suggesting that different processes may structure bryophyte species assemblages along this short subalpine climatic gradient. Higher functional redundancy in ground-dwelling bryophyte assemblages indicates that this community may be more robust than epiphytic bryophytes to disturbances in these subalpine ecosystems

Towards a moss sclerophylly continuum: Evolutionary history, water chemistry and climate control traits of hygrophytic mosses

“…In 2007, Hill et al published an extraordinarily large dataset of bryophyte traits, including morphological, reproductive and life‐history traits. Several researchers have studied moss traits in boreal and arctic ecosystems (Elumeeva, Soudzilovskaia, During, & Cornelissen, ; Jonsson et al, ; Kangas et al, ; Mazziotta, Granath, Rydin, Bengtsson, & Norberg, ; Sokołowska, Turzańska, & Nilsson, ; Turetsky et al, ), alpine habitats (Ah‐Peng et al, ; Wang, Liu, Bader, Feng, & Bao, ), tropical forests (Waite & Sack, ) and even in vitro experiments (Löbel & Rydin, ). Despite intensive local research on moss traits and the extremely useful dataset published by Hill, Preston, Bosanquet, and Roy (), however, it has not been until 2018 that, to the best of our knowledge, the first paper focused on the relationship between bryophyte traits, species distributions and environmental conditions was published.…”

Scaling α‐ and β‐diversity: bryophytes along an elevational gradient on a subtropical oceanic Island (La Palma, Canary Islands)

“…An additional value of these results is the use of the same standardized sampling method, which represents a hierarchical design along elevational gradients, across a variety of oceanic islands within the MOVECLIM project (Ah‐Peng et al. ; Gabriel et al. ), which will ultimately contribute towards better understanding the factors affecting α‐ and β‐diversity at varying spatial scales.…”

Identifying taxonomic and functional surrogates for spring biodiversity conservation

“…Bryophytes are clonal or colonial organisms, and their functioning is strongly linked to growth form, which influences survival, water requirements, and photosynthesis (Muotka & Virtanen ; Ah‐Peng et al. ). Life forms were obtained from Hill et al.…”

“…We categorized pigmentation as no, some, or frequent. Bryophytes are clonal or colonial organisms, and their functioning is strongly linked to growth form, which influences survival, water requirements, and photosynthesis (Muotka & Virtanen 1995;Ah-Peng et al 2014). Life forms were obtained from Hill et al (2007) and had 9 categories (detailed description of bryophyte traits in Supporting Information).…”