| Literature DB >> 26415616 |
Andrew Siefert1, Cyrille Violle2, Loïc Chalmandrier3,4, Cécile H Albert5, Adrien Taudiere2, Alex Fajardo6, Lonnie W Aarssen7, Christopher Baraloto8,9, Marcos B Carlucci10,11,12, Marcus V Cianciaruso13, Vinícius de L Dantas14, Francesco de Bello15,16, Leandro D S Duarte10, Carlos R Fonseca17, Grégoire T Freschet2,18, Stéphanie Gaucherand19, Nicolas Gross20,21, Kouki Hikosaka22, Benjamin Jackson23, Vincent Jung24, Chiho Kamiyama25, Masatoshi Katabuchi26, Steven W Kembel27, Emilie Kichenin18, Nathan J B Kraft28, Anna Lagerström18, Yoann Le Bagousse-Pinguet16, Yuanzhi Li29, Norman Mason30, Julie Messier31, Tohru Nakashizuka22, Jacob McC Overton30, Duane A Peltzer32, I M Pérez-Ramos33, Valério D Pillar10,34, Honor C Prentice35, Sarah Richardson32, Takehiro Sasaki36, Brandon S Schamp37, Christian Schöb38, Bill Shipley29, Maja Sundqvist39,40, Martin T Sykes41, Marie Vandewalle41, David A Wardle18.
Abstract
Recent studies have shown that accounting for intraspecific trait variation (ITV) may better address major questions in community ecology. However, a general picture of the relative extent of ITV compared to interspecific trait variation in plant communities is still missing. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of the relative extent of ITV within and among plant communities worldwide, using a data set encompassing 629 communities (plots) and 36 functional traits. Overall, ITV accounted for 25% of the total trait variation within communities and 32% of the total trait variation among communities on average. The relative extent of ITV tended to be greater for whole-plant (e.g. plant height) vs. organ-level traits and for leaf chemical (e.g. leaf N and P concentration) vs. leaf morphological (e.g. leaf area and thickness) traits. The relative amount of ITV decreased with increasing species richness and spatial extent, but did not vary with plant growth form or climate. These results highlight global patterns in the relative importance of ITV in plant communities, providing practical guidelines for when researchers should include ITV in trait-based community and ecosystem studies.Keywords: community ecology; functional diversity; interspecific variation; intraspecific variability; leaf trait; plant functional trait; trait-based ecology
Mesh：
Year: 2015 PMID： 26415616 DOI： 10.1111/ele.12508
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Ecol Lett ISSN： 1461-023X Impact factor: 9.492