title: Trait-Based Community Assembly along an Elevational Gradient in Subalpine Forests: Quantifying the Roles of Environmental Factors in Inter- and Intraspecific Variability.
abstract: Understanding how communities respond to environmental variation is a central goal in ecology. Plant communities respond to environmental gradients via intraspecific and/or interspecific variation in plant functional traits. However, the relative contribution of these two responses to environmental factors remains poorly tested. We measured six functional traits (height, leaf thickness, specific leaf area (SLA), leaf carbon concentration (LCC), leaf nitrogen concentration (LNC) and leaf phosphorus concentration (LPC)) for 55 tree species occurring at five elevations across a 1200 m elevational gradient of subalpine forests in Yulong Mountain, Southwest China. We examined the relative contribution of interspecific and intraspecific traits variability based on community weighted mean trait values and functional diversity, and tested how different components of trait variation respond to different environmental axes (climate and soil variables). Species turnover explained the largest amount of variation in leaf morphological traits (leaf thickness and SLA) across the elevational gradient. However, intraspecific variability explained a large amount of variation (49.3%-76.3%) in three other traits (height, LNC and LPC) despite high levels of species turnover. The detection of limiting similarity in community assembly was improved when accounting for both intraspecific and interspecific variability. Different components of trait variation respond to different environmental axes, especially soil water content and climatic variables. Our results indicate that intraspecific variation is critical for understanding community assembly and evaluating community response to environmental change.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Yunnan University, Kunming, China.|Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.|Germplasm Bank of Wild Species in Southwest China, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Ya-Huang
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Shao-Lin
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Biological Sciences, University of Toronto-Scarborough & Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.|State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Dynamics and Conservation of Guangdong, Higher Education Institutes, College of Ecology and Evolution, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Marc William
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Cadotte
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Yunnan University, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Yue-Hua
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Lijiang Forest Ecosystem Research Station, Kunming Instituted of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lijiang, China.
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.|Germplasm Bank of Wild Species in Southwest China, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: De-Zhu
authors.initials: DZ
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Lian-Ming
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Gao
mesh_terms: D000531:Altitude; D044822:Biodiversity; D002244:Carbon / Q000378:metabolism; D002980:Climate; D065928:Forests; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D014644:Genetic Variation; D010758:Phosphorus / Q000378:metabolism; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D019655:Quantitative Trait, Heritable; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry; D014197:Trees / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D010758:Phosphorus; D002244:Carbon