Journal
BOTANICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY
Volume 180, Issue 2, Pages 141-160Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/boj.12362
Keywords
Anthropocene; biodiversity; biogeography; boosted regression trees; climate change; disturbance; macroecology; model averaging; plant functional groups; vegetation modelling
Categories
Funding
- National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, a center - National Science Foundation [EF-0553768]
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- State of California
- iPlant collaborative (National Science Foundation) [DBI-0735191]
- Aarhus University
- European Research Council [ERC-2012-StG-310886-HISTFUNC]
- Elite-Forsk Award
- Aarhus University Research Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Plant functional group dominance has been linked to climate, topography and anthropogenic factors. Here, we assess existing theory linking functional group dominance patterns to their drivers by quantifying the spatial distribution of plant functional groups at a 100-km grid scale. We use a standardized plant species occurrence dataset of unprecedented size covering the entire New World. Functional group distributions were estimated from 3648533 standardized occurrence records for a total of 83854 vascular plant species, extracted from the Botanical Information and Ecology Network (BIEN) database. Seven plant functional groups were considered, describing major differences in structure and function: epiphytes; climbers; ferns; herbs; shrubs; coniferous trees; and angiosperm trees. Two measures of dominance (relative number of occurrences and relative species richness) were analysed against a range of hypothesized predictors. The functional groups showed distinct geographical patterns of dominance across the New World. Temperature seasonality and annual precipitation were most frequently selected, supporting existing hypotheses for the geographical dominance of each functional group. Human influence and topography were secondarily important. Our results support the prediction that future climate change and anthropogenic pressures could shift geographical patterns in dominance of plant functional groups, with probable consequences for ecosystem functioning.(c) 2015 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2016, 180, 141-160.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available