Abstract
Many plant species exhibit strong association with topographic habitats at local scales. However, the historical biogeographic and physiological drivers of habitat specialization are still poorly understood, and there is a need for relatively easy-to-measure predictors of species habitat niche breadth. Here, we explore whether species geographic range, climatic envelope, or intraspecific variability in leaf traits is related to the degree of habitat specialization in a hyperdiverse tropical tree community in Amazonian Ecuador. Contrary to our expectations, we find no effect of the size of species geographic ranges, the diversity of climate a species experiences across its range, or intraspecific variability in leaf traits in predicting topographic habitat association in the ~300 most common tropical tree species in a 25-ha tropical forest plot. In addition, there was no phylogenetic signal to habitat specialization. We conclude that species geographic range size, climatic niche breadth, and intraspecific variability in leaf traits fail to capture the habitat specialization patterns observed in this highly diverse tropical forest.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 304-310 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Biotropica |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 9 Apr 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2019 The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation
Funding
We are grateful to everyone who has contributed to the Yasuní FDP project, in particular M. Zambrano, P. Alvia, W. Loor, A. Loor, J. Suárez, G. Grefa and J. Suárez. We thank C. Hernández for data management and Á. Pérez for species identification. We thank the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador for funding research work and census (grants L 13251 and M 13373 to R. Valencia). We also thank the Mellon Family Foundation, NSF, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and The Government of Ecuador (through Donaciones del Impuesto a la Renta) for funding previous forest censuses. N. Kraft was partially supported by NSF DEB-1644641 and I.R. McFadden was partially supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (DGE-1650604). C. Fortunel benefited from an “Investissements d'Avenir” grant managed by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (CEBA, ref. ANR-10-LABX-25-01). We are also grateful to L. Comita and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript. We are grateful to everyone who has contributed to the Yasun? FDP project, in particular M. Zambrano, P. Alvia, W. Loor, A. Loor, J. Su?rez, G. Grefa and J. Su?rez. We thank C. Hern?ndez for data management and ?. P?rez for species identification. We thank the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador for funding research work and census (grants L 13251 and M 13373 to R. Valencia). We also thank the Mellon Family Foundation, NSF, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and The Government of Ecuador (through Donaciones del Impuesto a la Renta) for funding previous forest censuses. N. Kraft was partially supported by NSF DEB-1644641 and I.R. McFadden was partially supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (DGE-1650604). C. Fortunel benefited from an ?Investissements d'Avenir? grant managed by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (CEBA, ref. ANR-10-LABX-25-01). We are also grateful to L. Comita and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript. Division of Environmental Biology, Grant/ Award Number: DEB-1644641; NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Grant/ Award Number: DGE-1650604; Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, Grant/Award Number: L 13251 and M 13373
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| CEBA | |
| Donaciones del Impuesto a la Renta | DEB-1644641 |
| Mellon Family Foundation | |
| NSF DEB-1644641 | |
| National Science Foundation | DGE-1650604 |
| National Sleep Foundation | |
| Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute | |
| Agence Nationale de la Recherche | ANR-10-LABX-25-01 |
| Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador | L 13251, M 13373 |
Keywords
- climatic envelope
- functional traits
- geographic range
- habitat association
- intraspecific trait variability
- topographic gradient
- tropical trees