TY - JOUR
T1 - Soil resources and topography shape local tree community structure in tropical forests
AU - Baldeck, Claire A.
AU - Harms, Kyle E.
AU - Yavitt, Joseph B.
AU - John, Robert
AU - Turner, Benjamin L.
AU - Valencia, Renato
AU - Navarrete, Hugo
AU - Davies, Stuart J.
AU - Chuyong, George B.
AU - Kenfack, David
AU - Thomas, Duncan W.
AU - Madawala, Sumedha
AU - Gunatilleke, Nimal
AU - Gunatilleke, Savitri
AU - Bunyavejchewin, Sarayudh
AU - Kiratiprayoon, Somboon
AU - Yaacob, Adzmi
AU - Nur Supardi, Mohd N.
AU - Dalling, James W.
PY - 2013/2
Y1 - 2013/2
N2 - Both habitat filtering and dispersal limitation influence the compositional structure of forest communities, but previous studies examining the relative contributions of these processes with variation partitioning have primarily used topography to represent the influence of the environment. Here, we bring together data on both topography and soil resource variation within eight large (24-50 ha) tropical forest plots, and use variation partitioning to decompose community compositional variation into fractions explained by spatial, soil resource and topographic variables. Both soil resources and topography account for significant and approximately equal variation in tree community composition (9-34% and 5-29%, respectively), and all environmental variables together explain 13-39% of compositional variation within a plot. A large fraction of variation (19-37%) was spatially structured, yet unexplained by the environment, suggesting an important role for dispersal processes and unmeasured environmental variables. For the majority of sites, adding soil resource variables to topography nearly doubled the inferred role of habitat filtering, accounting for variation in compositional structure that would previously have been attributable to dispersal. Our results, illustrated using a new graphical depiction of community structure within these plots, demonstrate the importance of small-scale environmental variation in shaping local community structure in diverse tropical forests around the globe.
AB - Both habitat filtering and dispersal limitation influence the compositional structure of forest communities, but previous studies examining the relative contributions of these processes with variation partitioning have primarily used topography to represent the influence of the environment. Here, we bring together data on both topography and soil resource variation within eight large (24-50 ha) tropical forest plots, and use variation partitioning to decompose community compositional variation into fractions explained by spatial, soil resource and topographic variables. Both soil resources and topography account for significant and approximately equal variation in tree community composition (9-34% and 5-29%, respectively), and all environmental variables together explain 13-39% of compositional variation within a plot. A large fraction of variation (19-37%) was spatially structured, yet unexplained by the environment, suggesting an important role for dispersal processes and unmeasured environmental variables. For the majority of sites, adding soil resource variables to topography nearly doubled the inferred role of habitat filtering, accounting for variation in compositional structure that would previously have been attributable to dispersal. Our results, illustrated using a new graphical depiction of community structure within these plots, demonstrate the importance of small-scale environmental variation in shaping local community structure in diverse tropical forests around the globe.
KW - Beta diversity
KW - Community structure
KW - Dispersal
KW - Soil
KW - Topography
KW - Tropical forest
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84872188318&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1098/rspb.2012.2532
DO - 10.1098/rspb.2012.2532
M3 - Article
C2 - 23256196
AN - SCOPUS:84872188318
SN - 0962-8452
VL - 280
JO - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
JF - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
IS - 1753
M1 - 20122532
ER -