Divergent Secondary Metabolites and Habitat Filtering Both Contribute to Tree Species Coexistence in the Peruvian Amazon.

ABSTRACT: Little is known about the mechanisms promoting or limiting the coexistence of functionally divergent species in hyperdiverse tropical tree genera. Density-dependent enemy attacks have been proposed to be a major driver for the local coexistence of chemically divergent congeneric species. At the same time, we expect local soil conditions to favor the coexistence of species sharing similar functional traits related to resource use strategies, while environmental heterogeneity would promote the diversity of these traits at both local and large spatial scales. To test how these traits mediate species coexistence, we used functional trait data for 29 species from the tree genus Protium (Burseraceae), collected in 19 plots (2 ha each) in the Peruvian Amazon. We characterized the presence-

SUBMITTER: Vleminckx J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6018647 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature