Effect of climate on traits of dominant and rare tree species in the world’s forests
Iris Hordijk, Lourens Poorter, Jingjing Liang, Peter B. Reich, Sergio de‐Miguel, G.J. Nabuurs, Javier G. P. Gamarra, Han Y. H. Chen, Mo Zhou, Susan K. Wiser, Hans Pretzsch, Alain Paquette, Nicolas Picard, Bruno Hérault, Jean‐François Bastin, Giorgio Alberti, Meinrad Abegg, Constant Yves Adou Yao, Angélica M. Almeyda Zambrano, Braulio Vílchez Alvarado, Esteban Álvarez‐Dávila, Patricia Álvarez-Loayza, Luciana F. Alves, Iêda Leão do Amaral, Christian Ammer, Clara Antón‐Fernández, Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, Luzmila Arroyo, Valerio Avitabile, Gerardo A. Aymard C., Timothy R. Baker, Olaf Bánki, Jorcely Barroso, Meredith L. Bastian, Luca Birigazzi, Philippe Birnbaum, Robert Bitariho, Pascal Boeckx, Frans Bongers, Olivier Bouriaud, Pedro H. S. Brancalion, Susanne Brandl, Francis Q. Brearley, Roel Brienen, Eben N. Broadbent, Helge Bruelheide, Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Ricardo G. César, Goran Češljar, Robin L. Chazdon, Chelsea Chisholm, Emil Cienciala, Connie J. Clark, David B. Clark, Gabriel Dalla Colletta, David A. Coomes, Fernando Cornejo Valverde, José Javier Corral‐Rivas, Philip M. Crim, Jonathan Cumming, Selvadurai Dayanandan, André Luís de Gasper, Mathieu Decuyper, Géraldine Derroire, Ben DeVries, Ilija Djordjević, Aurélie Dourdain, Jiří Doležal, Nestor Laurier Engone Obiang, Brian J. Enquist, Teresa J. Eyre, Adandé Belarmain Fandohan, Tom M. Fayle, Leandro Valle Ferreira, Ted R. Feldpausch, Leena Finér, Markus Fischer, Christine Fletcher, Lorenzo Frizzera, Damiano Gianelle, Henry B. Glick, David J. Harris, Andy Hector, Andreas Hemp, John Herbohn, Annika Hillers, Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado, Cang Hui, Hyunkook Cho, Thomas Ibanez, Ilbin Jung, Nobuo Imai, Andrzej M. Jagodziński, Bogdan Jaroszewicz, Vivian Kvist Johannsen, Carlos Alfredo Joly, Tommaso Jucker, V.N. Karminov, Kuswata Kartawinata, Elizabeth Kearsley
Abstract
Species' traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. The extent to which traits of dominant and rare tree species differ remains untested across a broad environmental range, limiting our understanding of how species traits and the environment shape forest functional composition. We use a global dataset of tree composition of >22,000 forest plots and 11 traits of 1663 tree species to ask how locally dominant and rare species differ in their trait values, and how these differences are driven by climatic gradients in temperature and water availability in forest biomes across the globe. We find three consistent trait differences between locally dominant and rare species across all biomes; dominant species are taller, have softer wood and higher loading on the multivariate stem strategy axis (related to narrow tracheids and thick bark). The difference between traits of dominant and rare species is more strongly driven by temperature compared to water availability, as temperature might affect a larger number of traits. Therefore, climate change driven global temperature rise may have a strong effect on trait differences between dominant and rare tree species and may lead to changes in species abundances and therefore strong community reassembly.