Aims While using phylogenetic and functional approaches to test the mechanisms of community assembly,functional traits often act as the proxy of niches.However,there is little detailed knowledge regarding the correlat...Aims While using phylogenetic and functional approaches to test the mechanisms of community assembly,functional traits often act as the proxy of niches.However,there is little detailed knowledge regarding the correlation between functional traits of tree species and their niches in local communities.We suggest that the co-varying correlation between functional traits and niches should be the premise for using phylogenetic and functional approaches to test mechanisms of community assembly.Using functional traits,phylogenetic and environmental data,this study aims to answer the questions:(i)within local communities,do functional traits of co-occurring species covary with their environmental niches at the species level?and(ii)what is the key ecological process underlying community assembly in Xishuangbanna and Ailaoshan forest dynamic plots(FDPs)?Methods We measured seven functional traits of 229 and 36 common species in Xishuangbanna and Ailaoshan FDPs in tropical and subtropical China,respectively.We also quantified the environmental niches for these species based on conditional probability.We then analyzed the correlations between functional traits and environmental niches using phylogenetic independent contrasts.After examining phylogenetic signals of functional traits using Pagel’sλ,we quantified the phylogenetic and functional dispersion along environmental gradients within local tree communities.Important Findings For target species,functional traits do co-vary with environmental niches at the species level in both of the FDPs,supporting that functional traits can be used as a proxy for local-scale environmental niches.Functional traits show significant phylogenetic signals in both of the FDPs.We found that the phylogenetic and functional dispersion were significantly clustered along topographical gradients in the Ailaoshan FDP but overdispersion in the Xishuangbanna FDP.These patterns of phylogenetic and functional dispersion suggest that environmental filtering plays a key role in structuring local tree 展开更多
Plot number can deeply affect the result of forest gap model simulation, but which has been paid little attention and investigation. This study takes Broad-leaved Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis) forests, in Mt. Changba...Plot number can deeply affect the result of forest gap model simulation, but which has been paid little attention and investigation. This study takes Broad-leaved Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis) forests, in Mt. Changbai of Northeastern China, for instance, and applies forest gap model NEWCOP to investigate the effects of different plot number on the result of forest gap model simulation. Our study shows that plot number can affect forest species composition, which indicates a decrease of forest community variability index with increasing simulation plot number and a trend to 0 for the index after the plot number reaching some value. Based on the result mentioned above, we conclude that the smallest area of stand for presenting the characteristics of broad-leaved korean pine forest community is 38400 ha.展开更多
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China(31000201,31370445,31061160188)National Key Basic Research Program of China(2014CB954104)the West Light Foundation of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Special Program for Basic Research of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China(2012FY10400,2011FY120200).
文摘Aims While using phylogenetic and functional approaches to test the mechanisms of community assembly,functional traits often act as the proxy of niches.However,there is little detailed knowledge regarding the correlation between functional traits of tree species and their niches in local communities.We suggest that the co-varying correlation between functional traits and niches should be the premise for using phylogenetic and functional approaches to test mechanisms of community assembly.Using functional traits,phylogenetic and environmental data,this study aims to answer the questions:(i)within local communities,do functional traits of co-occurring species covary with their environmental niches at the species level?and(ii)what is the key ecological process underlying community assembly in Xishuangbanna and Ailaoshan forest dynamic plots(FDPs)?Methods We measured seven functional traits of 229 and 36 common species in Xishuangbanna and Ailaoshan FDPs in tropical and subtropical China,respectively.We also quantified the environmental niches for these species based on conditional probability.We then analyzed the correlations between functional traits and environmental niches using phylogenetic independent contrasts.After examining phylogenetic signals of functional traits using Pagel’sλ,we quantified the phylogenetic and functional dispersion along environmental gradients within local tree communities.Important Findings For target species,functional traits do co-vary with environmental niches at the species level in both of the FDPs,supporting that functional traits can be used as a proxy for local-scale environmental niches.Functional traits show significant phylogenetic signals in both of the FDPs.We found that the phylogenetic and functional dispersion were significantly clustered along topographical gradients in the Ailaoshan FDP but overdispersion in the Xishuangbanna FDP.These patterns of phylogenetic and functional dispersion suggest that environmental filtering plays a key role in structuring local tree
文摘Plot number can deeply affect the result of forest gap model simulation, but which has been paid little attention and investigation. This study takes Broad-leaved Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis) forests, in Mt. Changbai of Northeastern China, for instance, and applies forest gap model NEWCOP to investigate the effects of different plot number on the result of forest gap model simulation. Our study shows that plot number can affect forest species composition, which indicates a decrease of forest community variability index with increasing simulation plot number and a trend to 0 for the index after the plot number reaching some value. Based on the result mentioned above, we conclude that the smallest area of stand for presenting the characteristics of broad-leaved korean pine forest community is 38400 ha.
