Plant Trait Assembly in Species-Rich Forests at Varying Elevations in the Northwest Andes of Colombia

Andean forests are home to a strikingly high diversity of plants, making it difficult to understand the main drivers of species assembly. Trait-based approaches, however, help overcome some challenges associated with high taxonomic complexity, providing insights into the main drivers of species coex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Land (Basel) 2021-10, Vol.10 (10), p.1057
Main Authors: Ochoa-Beltrán, Angélica, Martínez-Villa, Johanna Andrea, Kennedy, Peter G., Salgado-Negret, Beatriz, Duque, Alvaro
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Andean forests
Assembly
Climate change
Coexistence
environmental drivers
Environmental gradient
Flowers & plants
Forests
fourth corner
functional traits
Hydraulics
Leaf area
Leaves
Light
Light distribution
mycorrhizas
Plant diversity
Plant resistance
Plants
Plot (Narrative)
Precipitation
Radiation
RLQ
Soil fertility
Species
Taxonomy
Trees
Variables
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Summary:Andean forests are home to a strikingly high diversity of plants, making it difficult to understand the main drivers of species assembly. Trait-based approaches, however, help overcome some challenges associated with high taxonomic complexity, providing insights into the main drivers of species coexistence. Here, we evaluated the roles of climate, soil fertility, and symbiotic root associations on shaping the assembly of six plant functional traits (leaf area, specific leaf area, dry leaf matter content, leaf thickness, leaf toughness, and wood density) along an elevational gradient in the species-rich northwestern Andean forests of Colombia. The two main axes of the correspondence RLQ analysis explained 95.75% of the variability. The first axis was associated with the leaf economic spectrum, while the second axis with the tradeoff between growth and survival. Furthermore, the fourth corner method showed that both regional (climatic variables) and local factors (soil fertility, symbiotic root associations, and light distribution) played a key role in determining plant trait assembly. In summary, our study emphasizes the importance of considering both individual size and local factors to better understand drivers of plant trait assembly along environmental gradients.
ISSN:2073-445X
2073-445X
DOI:10.3390/land10101057