Evolutionary conservatism explains increasing relatedness of plant communities along a flooding gradient

Abiotic filters have been found either to increase or reduce evolutionary relatedness in plant communities, making it difficult to generalize responses of this major feature of biodiversity to future environmental change. Here, we hypothesized that the responses of phylogenetic structure to environmental change ultimately depend on how species have evolved traits for tolerating the resulting abiotic changes. Working within ephemeral wetlands, we tested whether species were increasingly related as flooding duration intensified. We also identified the mechanisms underlying increased relatedness by measuring root aerenchyma volume (RAV), a trait which promotes waterlogging tolerance. We found that species-specific responses to flooding explained most of the variation in occurrence for 63 vascular plant species across 5170 plots. For a subset of 22 species, we attributed these responses to variation in RAV. Large RAV specifically increased occurrence when flooding lasted for longer time periods, because large RAV reduced above-ground biomass loss. As large RAV was evolutionarily conserved within obligate wetland species, communities were more phylogenetically related as flooding increased. Our study shows how reconstructing the evolutionary history of traits that influence the responses of species to environmental change can help to predict future patterns in phylogenetic structure.