Abstract
Phylogenetically informed trait comparisons across entire communities show promise in advancing community ecology. We use this approach to better understand the composition of a community of winter annual plants with multiple decades of monitoring and detailed morphological, phenological and physiological measurements. Previous research on this system revealed a physiological trade-off among dominant species that accurately predicts population and community dynamics. Here we expanded our investigation to 51 species, representing 96% of individual plants recorded over 30 years, and analysed trait relationships in the context of species abundance and phylogenetic relationships. We found that the functional-trait trade-off scales to the entire community, albeit with diminished strength. It is strongest for dominant species and weakens as progressively rarer species are included. The trade-off has been consistently expressed over three decades of environmental change despite some turnover in the identity of dominant species.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 583-592 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Ecology letters |
Volume | 22 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 2019 |
Keywords
- Abundance
- annual plants
- coexistence
- community phylogenetics
- functional traits
- macroecology
- physiological trade-offs
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics