Disentangling the local-scale drivers of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity in woody plant assemblages along elevational gradients in South Korea.

ABSTRACT: Recently, new alternative matrices of biodiversity such as phylogenetic and functional diversity as a complement to species diversity have provided new insights into the mechanisms of community assembly. In this study, we analyzed the phylogenetic signals of five functional traits and the relative contribution of environmental variables and distance matrices to the alpha and beta components of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity in woody plant assemblages along four local elevational transects on two different mountains. We observed low but significant phylogenetic signals of functional traits, which suggest that phylogenetic dispersion can provide a rough approximation of functional dispersion but not perfect correlations between phylogenetic and functional diversity. Taxonom

SUBMITTER: Chun JH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5624625 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature