Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2018

Publication Source

Forests

Abstract

Identifying the drivers of community assembly has long been a central goal in ecology, and the development of functional diversity indices has provided a new way of detecting the influence of environmental gradients on biotic communities. For an old-growth Appalachian forest, we used path analysis to understand how patterns of tree functional diversity relate to topography and soil gradients and to determine whether topographic effects are mediated through soil chemistry. All of our path models supported the idea of environmental filtering: stressful areas (high elevation, low soil moisture, low soil nutrients) were occupied by communities of low functional diversity, which suggests a selective effect for species with traits adapted to such harsh conditions. The effects of topography (slope, aspect, elevation) on functional diversity were often indirect and moderated through soil moisture and fertility. Soil moisture was a key component of our models and was featured consistently in each one, having either strong direct effects on functional diversity or indirect effects via soil fertility. Our results provide a comprehensive view of the interplay among functional trait assemblages, topography, and edaphic conditions and contribute to the baseline understanding of the role of environmental filtering in temperate forest community assembly.

Inclusive pages

1-16

ISBN/ISSN

1999-4907

Document Version

Published Version

Comments

This paper is made available in compliance with the publisher's open-access policy. Permission documentation is on file.

The data collected for the paper are available in an open-access archive. See Old-growth deciduous forest dynamics archive, Lilley Cornett Woods.

Publisher

MDPI

Place of Publication

Basel, Switzerland

Volume

9

Peer Reviewed

yes

Issue

1

Keywords

path analysis, functional richness, functional dispersion, community-weighted mean, stress-dominance hypothesis, old-growth


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