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Traditional plant functional groups explain variation in economic but not size‐related traits across the tundra biome |
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| Author: | Thomas, H. J. D.1; Myers‐Smith, I. H.1; Bjorkman, A. D.1,2,3; |
| Organizations: |
1School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom 2Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark 3Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK‐F), Frankfurt, Germany
4Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
5Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden 6Department of Ecological Science, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 7Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland 8Biology Department, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan 9WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos, Switzerland 10Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland 11Institute for Botany and Landscape Ecology, Greifswald University, Greifswald, Germany 12School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 13Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany 14German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle‐Jena‐Leipzig, Germany 15School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona 16Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, Boothbay, Maine 17Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar 18Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 19Biodiversity Research Institute, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 20Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden 21Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, Gothenburg, Sweden 22Institute of Geoecology and Geoinformation, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland 23Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, Alaska 24Forest Ecology and Forest Management, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, Netherlands 25Department of Chemistry, Life Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, University of Parma, Parma, Italy 26The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Juneau, Alaska 27Department of Biology, Memorial University, St John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada 28Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, UiT‐The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway 29Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany 30Department of Ecology and Genetics, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland 31Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 32Global Ecology Unit, CREAF‐CSIC‐UAB‐UB, Bellaterra, Spain 33Department of Biology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada 34Biology Department, Swedish Agricultural University (SLU), Uppsala, Sweden 35Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands 36British Columbia Public Service, British Columbia, Canada 37Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria 38Climate Change Science Institute and Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 39Department of Biology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway 40Department of Biology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada 41Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden 42Department of Biology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium 43Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 44Département des Sciences de l'Environnement and Centres d'études nordiques, Université du Québec à Trois‐Rivières, Trois‐Rivières, Quebec, Canada 45Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark 46Center for Permafrost (CENPERM), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark 47Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), Brussels, Belgium 48Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, Florida 49Department of Geobotany, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia 50Environmental Biology, Department Institute of Environmental Sciences, CML, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands 51Department of Biology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, California 52NTNU University Museum, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway 53Water and Environmental Research Center, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 54Environmental Sciences, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands 55School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada 56Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Acton, ACT, Australia 57Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia 58Department of Geography, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany 59Department of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria 60Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom 61Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Crested Butte, Colorado 62School of Biosciences & Veterinary Medicine ‐ Plant Diversity and Ecosystems Management Unit, University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy 63DiSTA, University of Insubria, Varese, Italy 64Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 65Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany 66School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom 67Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal (IMBIV), CONICET and FCEFyN, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Córdoba, Argentina 68Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 69Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, California 70Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia 71CREAF, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain 72Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Minnesota 73Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia 74Department of Biology, Algoma University, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada 75Komarov Botanical Institute, St Petersburg, Russia |
| Format: | article |
| Version: | published version |
| Access: | open |
| Online Access: | PDF Full Text (PDF, 6.5 MB) |
| Persistent link: | http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi-fe2019062021490 |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
John Wiley & Sons,
2019
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| Publish Date: | 2019-06-20 |
| Description: |
AbstractAim: Plant functional groups are widely used in community ecology and earth system modelling to describe trait variation within and across plant communities. However, this approach rests on the assumption that functional groups explain a large proportion of trait variation among species. We test whether four commonly used plant functional groups represent variation in six ecologically important plant traits. Location: Tundra biome. Time period: Data collected between 1964 and 2016. Major taxa studied: 295 tundra vascular plant species. Methods: We compiled a database of six plant traits (plant height, leaf area, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, leaf nitrogen, seed mass) for tundra species. We examined the variation in species‐level trait expression explained by four traditional functional groups (evergreen shrubs, deciduous shrubs, graminoids, forbs), and whether variation explained was dependent upon the traits included in analysis. We further compared the explanatory power and species composition of functional groups to alternative classifications generated using post hoc clustering of species‐level traits. Results: Traditional functional groups explained significant differences in trait expression, particularly amongst traits associated with resource economics, which were consistent across sites and at the biome scale. However, functional groups explained 19% of overall trait variation and poorly represented differences in traits associated with plant size. Post hoc classification of species did not correspond well with traditional functional groups, and explained twice as much variation in species‐level trait expression. Main conclusions: Traditional functional groups only coarsely represent variation in well‐measured traits within tundra plant communities, and better explain resource economic traits than size‐related traits. We recommend caution when using functional group approaches to predict tundra vegetation change, or ecosystem functions relating to plant size, such as albedo or carbon storage. We argue that alternative classifications or direct use of specific plant traits could provide new insights for ecological prediction and modelling. see all
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| Series: |
Global ecology and biogeography. A journal of macroecology |
| ISSN: | 1466-822X |
| ISSN-E: | 1466-822X |
| ISSN-L: | 1466-822X |
| Volume: | 28 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 78 - 95 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/geb.12783 |
| OADOI: | https://oadoi.org/10.1111/geb.12783 |
| Type of Publication: |
A1 Journal article – refereed |
| Field of Science: |
1181 Ecology, evolutionary biology |
| Subjects: | |
| Funding: |
The project was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council [ShrubTundra Project NE/M016323/1 (IMS, AB, HT, SAB, DG) & PhD Studentship NE/L002558/1 (HT)], the Synthesis Centre of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle‐Jena‐Leipzig (DFG FZT 118; sTundra working group [postdoctoral fellowship to AB]). The study has been supported by the TRY initiative on plant traits (https://www.try-db.org). The TRY initiative and database is hosted at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany. TRY is currently supported by DIVERSITAS/Future Earth and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle‐Jena‐Leipzig. Authors were supported by the Swedish Research Council (2015‐00465) (DB) and (2015‐00498) (EK), Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions (INCA 600398) (DB), the National Science Foundation (USA; RH), the Carlsberg Foundation (2013‐01‐0825) (SN), the Danish Council for Independent Research ‐ Natural Sciences (DFF 4181‐00565) (SN), European Research Council Synergy grant ERC‐SyG‐2013‐610028 IMBALANCE‐P (JP), University of Zurich Research Priority Program on Global Change and Biodiversity (GSS, MIG), the Office of Biological and Environmental Research in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science (Next‐Generation Ecosystem Experiments in the Arctic ‐ NGEE Arctic) (CMI), NASA Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment ‐ ABoVE (LB, SG), The Swiss National Science Foundation (EF, AK, SV), NSERC Canada (EL, JJ, AP, BSPG, TZ), ArcticNet (EL, AP, GH), The US National Science Foundation Niwot Ridge LTER (DEB‐1637686) (MJ), Long‐Term Ecological Research (DEB‐1234162) (PR) and Long‐Term Research in Environmental Biology (DEB‐1242531) (PR), Organismo Autónomo Parques Nacionales (JMN), the Arctic Research Centre, Denmark (JNN), RSF (#14‐50‐000290) (VO), the Polar Continental Shelf Program (AP, EL, GH), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (GH), the Montagna di Torricchio Nature Reserve (Italy) (GC) the Academy of Finland Decisions no. 256991 (BF), JPI Climate no. 291581 (BF), and the BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship (BB/L02456X/1) (FTdV) |
| Copyright information: |
© 2018 The Authors. Global Ecology and Biogeography Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
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https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |