Functional Diversity in Ferns Is Driven by Species Richness Rather Than by Environmental Constraints.

ABSTRACT: Functional traits determine how species interact with their abiotic and biotic environment. In turn, functional diversity describes how assemblages of species as a whole are adapted to their environment, which also determines how they might react to changing conditions. To fully understand functional diversity, it is fundamental to (a) disentangle the influences of environmental filtering and species richness from each other, (b) assess if the trait space saturates at high levels of species richness, and (c) understand how changes in species numbers affect the relative importance of the trait niche expansion and packing. In the present study, we determined functional diversity of fern assemblages by describing morphological traits related to resource acquisition along four tropical elevati

SUBMITTER: Aros-Mualin D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7829179 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature