TY - JOUR

T1 - Global functional variation in alpine vegetation

AU - Testolin, Riccardo

AU - Carmona, Carlos Pérez

AU - Attorre, Fabio

AU - Borchardt, Peter

AU - Bruelheide, Helge

AU - Dolezal, Jiri

AU - Finckh, Manfred

AU - Haider, Sylvia

AU - Hemp, Andreas

AU - Jandt, Ute

AU - Korolyuk, Andrei Yu

AU - Lenoir, Jonathan

AU - Makunina, Natalia

AU - Malanson, George P.

AU - Mucina, Ladislav

AU - Noroozi, Jalil

AU - Nowak, Arkadiusz

AU - Peet, Robert K.

AU - Peyre, Gwendolyn

AU - Sabatini, Francesco Maria

AU - Šibík, Jozef

AU - Sklenář, Petr

AU - Vassilev, Kiril

AU - Virtanen, Risto

AU - Wiser, Susan K.

AU - Zibzeev, Evgeny G.

AU - Jiménez-Alfaro, Borja

N1 - GPM was funded by US National Science Foundation award 1853665. JD was funded by the MSMT Inter-Excellence project (LTAUSA18007). LM was funded by the Iluka Chair in Vegetation Science and Biogeography at the Murdoch University. SKW was funded by the NZ Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment's Strategic Science Investment Fund. CPC was funded by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (PSG293). BJ-A was funded by the Marie Curie Clarín-COFUND programme of the Principality of Asturias-EU (ACB17-26) and the Spanish Research Agency (AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033)." sPlot was funded by the German Research Foundation as one of iDiv's (DFG FZT 118, 202548816) research platforms This article is a part of the Special Feature Macroecology of vegetation, edited by Meelis Pärtel, Francesco Maria Sabatini, Naia Morueta-Holme, Holger Kreft and Jürgen Dengler. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 International Association for Vegetation Science

PY - 2021/3/1

Y1 - 2021/3/1

N2 - Questions: What are the functional trade-offs of vascular plant species in global alpine ecosystems? How is functional variation related to vegetation zones, climatic groups and biogeographic realms? What is the relative contribution of macroclimate and evolutionary history in shaping the functional variation of alpine plant communities?. Location: Global. Methods: We compiled a data set of alpine vegetation with 5,532 geo-referenced plots, 1,933 species and six plant functional traits. We used principal component analysis to quantify functional trade-offs among species and trait probability density to assess the functional dissimilarity of alpine vegetation in different vegetation zones, climatic groups and biogeographic realms. We used multiple regression on distance matrices to model community functional dissimilarity against environmental and phylogenetic dissimilarity, controlling for geographic distance. Results: The first two PCA axes explained 66% of the species’ functional variation and were related to the leaf and stem economic spectra, respectively. Trait probability density was largely independent of vegetation zone and macroclimate but differed across biogeographic realms. The same pattern emerged for both species pool and community levels. The effects of environmental and phylogenetic dissimilarities on community functional dissimilarity had similar magnitude, while the effect of geographic distance was negligible. Conclusions: Plant species in alpine areas reflect the global variation of plant function, but with a predominant role of resource use strategies. Current macroclimate exerts a limited effect on alpine vegetation, mostly acting at the community level in combination with evolutionary history. Global alpine vegetation is functionally unrelated to the vegetation zones in which it is embedded, exhibiting strong functional convergence across regions.

AB - Questions: What are the functional trade-offs of vascular plant species in global alpine ecosystems? How is functional variation related to vegetation zones, climatic groups and biogeographic realms? What is the relative contribution of macroclimate and evolutionary history in shaping the functional variation of alpine plant communities?. Location: Global. Methods: We compiled a data set of alpine vegetation with 5,532 geo-referenced plots, 1,933 species and six plant functional traits. We used principal component analysis to quantify functional trade-offs among species and trait probability density to assess the functional dissimilarity of alpine vegetation in different vegetation zones, climatic groups and biogeographic realms. We used multiple regression on distance matrices to model community functional dissimilarity against environmental and phylogenetic dissimilarity, controlling for geographic distance. Results: The first two PCA axes explained 66% of the species’ functional variation and were related to the leaf and stem economic spectra, respectively. Trait probability density was largely independent of vegetation zone and macroclimate but differed across biogeographic realms. The same pattern emerged for both species pool and community levels. The effects of environmental and phylogenetic dissimilarities on community functional dissimilarity had similar magnitude, while the effect of geographic distance was negligible. Conclusions: Plant species in alpine areas reflect the global variation of plant function, but with a predominant role of resource use strategies. Current macroclimate exerts a limited effect on alpine vegetation, mostly acting at the community level in combination with evolutionary history. Global alpine vegetation is functionally unrelated to the vegetation zones in which it is embedded, exhibiting strong functional convergence across regions.

KW - Biology

KW - alpine biomes

KW - alpine vegetation

KW - evolutionary history

KW - functional convergence

KW - macroclimate

KW - phylogenetic dissimilarity

KW - trait pools

KW - trait probability density

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85105098814&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/9e95f44f-0179-3362-b4c6-a2846d354836/

U2 - 10.1111/jvs.13000

DO - 10.1111/jvs.13000

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85105098814

VL - 32

JO - Journal of Vegetation Science

JF - Journal of Vegetation Science

SN - 1100-9233

IS - 2

M1 - e13000

ER -