Understanding community assemblage using species and functional diversity across elevational gradients from the tropics to the arctic

Abstract ID: 3.12382 | Accepted as Talk | Talk | TBA | TBA

Aud Helen Halbritter (1)
Julia Chacón‐Labella (2), Brian Enquist (3), Kari Klanderud (4), Brian S. Maitner (5), Sean Michaletz (6), Richard J. Telford (1), Vigdis Vandvik (1)
(1) University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
(2) Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
(3) University of Arizona, Tuscon, USA
(4) Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway
(5) University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA
(6) The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Categories: Biodiversity, Ecosystems
Keywords: resource aquisition, resource conervation, grasslands, global change, plant functional traits

Categories: Biodiversity, Ecosystems
Keywords: resource aquisition, resource conervation, grasslands, global change, plant functional traits

Species and functional diversity are different metrics describing biodiversity and ecosystem function and they are affected by both abiotic and biotic filtering as well as the regional species pool. Species richness and functional diversity are expected to decrease towards high elevation and the arctic, due to stronger environmental filtering and fewer species in the species pool. These metrics can be used to understand how plant communities respond to different filters and how communities’ assembly along broad environmental gradients. We assessed plant species diversity (i.e. species richness, evenness) and functional diversity (i.e. community weighted means and variance in leaf functional traits) along six elevational gradients from the arctic in Svalbard, temperate mountains in Norway and Colorado to (sub)tropical mountains in China, Peru, and South Africa. Specifically, we ask how plant communities respond to environmental drivers along elevational gradients in terms of species and functional diversity? And how consistent these patterns are across a broad latitudinal gradient from the tropics to the arctic? We find that richness relative to the regional species pool varied with elevation but increased with latitude. Plant communities from warmer regions showed more resource aquisitative traits compared to plant communities from colder regions. This was largely reflected within and across regions. Together, these results show that species and functional diversity vary differently across these environmental gradients, suggesting that other factors than environmental filtering are important for community assemblage across these gradients. Our results provide important insights into the responses of plant species and communities and their function to climate change. Understanding species and functional diversity across elevational gradients can help predict the potential of plant species to shift to higher elevation with climate change and invade alpine environments.

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