Global trait-environment relationships of plant communities

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Global Ecology
• Trait-based Ecology

Background:

• Plant functional traits are key drivers of ecosystem functions.
• At the species level, trait combinations reflect ecological trade-offs, but community-level composition may decouple due to species co-existence strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the global filtering of plant functional traits.
• To determine the influence of global versus local environmental drivers on community-level trait composition.

Main Methods:

• Global analysis of trait-environment relationships using a large database of over 1.1 million vegetation plots and 26,632 plant species.
• Examination of 17 functional traits and their association with macro-environmental conditions.

Main Results:

• Strong filtering of 17 functional traits was observed globally.
• Similar climate and soil conditions supported communities with divergent mean trait values.
• The primary community trait axes (plant stature and resource acquisitiveness) weakly correlated with global climate and soil conditions.
• Within-plot trait variation did not systematically correlate with macro-environmental factors.

Conclusions:

• Macro-environmental drivers have less influence on functional trait composition at fine spatial scales than previously assumed.
• Local-scale factors, including disturbance, fine-scale soil conditions, niche partitioning, and biotic interactions, appear to be the dominant filters for trait combinations.