title: Functional Resilience against Climate-Driven Extinctions - Comparing the Functional Diversity of European and North American Tree Floras.
abstract: Future global change scenarios predict a dramatic loss of biodiversity for many regions in the world, potentially reducing the resistance and resilience of ecosystem functions. Once before, during Plio-Pleistocene glaciations, harsher climatic conditions in Europe as compared to North America led to a more depauperate tree flora. Here we hypothesize that this climate driven species loss has also reduced functional diversity in Europe as compared to North America. We used variation in 26 traits for 154 North American and 66 European tree species and grid-based co-occurrences derived from distribution maps to compare functional diversity patterns of the two continents. First, we identified similar regions with respect to contemporary climate in the temperate zone of North America and Europe. Second, we compared the functional diversity of both continents and for the climatically similar sub-regions using the functional dispersion-index (FDis) and the functional richness index (FRic). Third, we accounted in these comparisons for grid-scale differences in species richness, and, fourth, investigated the associated trait spaces using dimensionality reduction. For gymnosperms we find similar functional diversity on both continents, whereas for angiosperms functional diversity is significantly greater in Europe than in North America. These results are consistent across different scales, for climatically similar regions and considering species richness patterns. We decomposed these differences in trait space occupation into differences in functional diversity vs. differences in functional identity. We show that climate-driven species loss on a continental scale might be decoupled from or at least not linearly related to changes in functional diversity. This might be important when analyzing the effects of climate-driven biodiversity change on ecosystem functioning.
authors: Department of Special Botany and Functional Biodiversity, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
authors: Mario
authors: M
authors: Liebergesell
authors: Escuela de Biología, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Cra. 27 Calle 9, 680002, Bucaramanga, Colombia.
authors: Björn
authors: B
authors: Reu
authors: Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany.
authors: Ulrike
authors: U
authors: Stahl
authors: Department of Special Botany and Functional Biodiversity, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
authors: Martin
authors: M
authors: Freiberg
authors: Department of Geobotany, University of Halle/Saale, Halle/Saale, Germany.
authors: Erik
authors: E
authors: Welk
authors: Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany.
authors: Jens
authors: J
authors: Kattge
authors: Systems Ecology, Dept. of Ecological Science, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors: J Hans C
authors: JH
authors: Cornelissen
authors: CSIC, Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CSIC-UAB, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.|CREAF, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
authors: Josep
authors: J
authors: Peñuelas
authors: Department of Special Botany and Functional Biodiversity, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.|German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
authors: Christian
authors: C
authors: Wirth
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D032462:Cycadopsida / Q000502:physiology; D053476:Extinction, Biological; D005843:Geography; D019684:Magnoliopsida / Q000502:physiology; D014197:Trees / Q000502:physiology*