ArticlePloS one2016
Trait-Based Community Assembly along an Elevational Gradient in Subalpine Forests: Quantifying the Roles of Environmental Factors in Inter- and Intraspecific Variability.
Article in PloS one, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- Plant Ecological Strategies in Relation to Environmental Factors Along Elevational Gradients on Gongga Mount.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The primacy of species turnover over intraspecific variation in the environmental filtering of understory ferns.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Functional traits variation and adaptive strategies of epilithic bryophytes in degraded karst ecosystem.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Stable body sizes in soil nematodes across altitudes: The role of intrageneric variation in community assembly.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Influence of surface water and groundwater on functional traits and trade-off strategies of oasis communities at the end of the Keriya River, China.Frontiers in plant science · 2024Article
- Differential patterns of within- and between-population genetically based trait variation in Lupinus angustifolius.Annals of botany · 2023Article
- Intraspecific variations in leaf functional traits of Cunninghamia lanceolata provenances.BMC plant biology · 2023Article
- Contrasting alien effects on native diversity along biotic and abiotic gradients in an arid protected area.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Intraspecific trait variation in plants: a renewed focus on its role in ecological processes.Annals of botany · 2021Review
- The Role of Inter- and Intraspecific Variations in Grassland Plant Functional Traits along an Elevational Gradient in a Mediterranean Mountain Area.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Leaf Morphological and Nutrient Traits of Common Woody Plants Change Along the Urban-Rural Gradient in Beijing, China.Frontiers in plant science · 2021Article
- Plant species richness and community assembly along gradients of elevation and soil nitrogen availability.AoB PLANTS · 2020Article
- Small mammal species richness and turnover along elevational gradient in Yulong Mountain, Yunnan, Southwest China.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Article
- Plant invasion alters trait composition and diversity across habitats.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Biodiversity explains maximum variation in productivity under experimental warming, nitrogen addition, and grazing in mountain grasslands.Ecology and evolution · 2018Article
- DNA barcoding herbaceous and woody plant species at a subalpine forest dynamics plot in Southwest China.Ecology and evolution · 2018Article
- Mapping functional diversity from remotely sensed morphological and physiological forest traits.Nature communications · 2017Article
- Using phylogeny and functional traits for assessing community assembly along environmental gradients: A deterministic process driven by elevation.Ecology and evolution · 2017Article
- Trait variation and functional diversity maintenance of understory herbaceous species coexisting along an elevational gradient in Yulong Mountain, Southwest China.Plant diversity · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Understanding how communities respond to environmental variation is a central goal in ecology. Plant communities respond to environmental gradients via intraspecific and/or interspecific variation in plant functional traits. However, the relative contribution of these two responses to environmental factors remains poorly tested. We measured six functional traits (height, leaf thickness, specific leaf area (SLA), leaf carbon concentration (LCC), leaf nitrogen concentration (LNC) and leaf phosphorus concentration (LPC)) for 55 tree species occurring at five elevations across a 1200 m elevational gradient of subalpine forests in Yulong Mountain, Southwest China. We examined the relative contribution of interspecific and intraspecific traits variability based on community weighted mean trait values and functional diversity, and tested how different components of trait variation respond to different environmental axes (climate and soil variables). Species turnover explained the largest amount of variation in leaf morphological traits (leaf thickness and SLA) across the elevational gradient. However, intraspecific variability explained a large amount of variation (49.3%-76.3%) in three other traits (height, LNC and LPC) despite high levels of species turnover. The detection of limiting similarity in community assembly was improved when accounting for both intraspecific and interspecific variability. Different components of trait variation respond to different environmental axes, especially soil water content and climatic variables. Our results indicate that intraspecific variation is critical for understanding community assembly and evaluating community response to environmental change.
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