title: Local-scale Partitioning of Functional and Phylogenetic Beta Diversity in a Tropical Tree Assemblage.
abstract: The relative degree to which stochastic and deterministic processes underpin community assembly is a central problem in ecology. Quantifying local-scale phylogenetic and functional beta diversity may shed new light on this problem. We used species distribution, soil, trait and phylogenetic data to quantify whether environmental distance, geographic distance or their combination are the strongest predictors of phylogenetic and functional beta diversity on local scales in a 20-ha tropical seasonal rainforest dynamics plot in southwest China. The patterns of phylogenetic and functional beta diversity were generally consistent. The phylogenetic and functional dissimilarity between subplots (10 × 10 m, 20 × 20 m, 50 × 50 m and 100 × 100 m) was often higher than that expected by chance. The turnover of lineages and species function within habitats was generally slower than that across habitats. Partitioning the variation in phylogenetic and functional beta diversity showed that environmental distance was generally a better predictor of beta diversity than geographic distance thereby lending relatively more support for deterministic environmental filtering over stochastic processes. Overall, our results highlight that deterministic processes play a stronger role than stochastic processes in structuring community composition in this diverse assemblage of tropical trees.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, U.S.A.
authors.forename: Nathan G
authors.initials: NG
authors.lastname: Swenson
authors.affiliation: 1] Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China [2] University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Guocheng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: 1] Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China [2] University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xiuqin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ci
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Liqing
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sha
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Ferry Slik
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Luxiang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lin
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D002681:China; D017753:Ecosystem; D010802:Phylogeny; D065947:Rainforest; D014197:Trees / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D014329:Tropical Climate