Forest structure, not climate, is the primary driver of functional diversity in northeastern North America.

ABSTRACT: Functional diversity (FD), represented by plant traits, is fundamentally linked to an ecosystem's capacity to respond to environmental change. Yet, little is known about the spatial distribution of FD and its drivers. These knowledge gaps prevent the development of FD-based forest management approaches to increase the trait diversity insurance (i.e., the response diversity) against future environmental fluctuations and disturbances. Our study helps fill these knowledge gaps by (i) mapping the current FD distribution, (ii) and analyzing FD drivers across northeastern North America. Following the stress-dominance hypothesis, we expected a strong environmental filtering effect on FD. Moreover, we expected abundant species to determine the bulk of FD distributions as suggested by the mass-rati

SUBMITTER: Thom D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7612768 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature