Can Functional Traits Explain Plant Coexistence? A Case Study with Tropical Lianas and Trees

Authors

Felipe N. A. Mello, Marquette University
Sergio Estrada Villegas, Marquette UniversityFollow
David M. DeFilippis, Marquette University
Stefan A. Schnitzer, Marquette UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Publication Date

10-2020

Publisher

MDPI

Source Publication

Diversity

Source ISSN

1424-2818

Abstract

Organisms are adapted to their environment through a suite of anatomical, morphological, and physiological traits. These functional traits are commonly thought to determine an organism’s tolerance to environmental conditions. However, the differences in functional traits among co-occurring species, and whether trait differences mediate competition and coexistence is still poorly understood. Here we review studies comparing functional traits in two co-occurring tropical woody plant guilds, lianas and trees, to understand whether competing plant guilds differ in functional traits and how these differences may help to explain tropical woody plant coexistence. We examined 36 separate studies that compared a total of 140 different functional traits of co-occurring lianas and trees. We conducted a meta-analysis for ten of these functional traits, those that were present in at least five studies. We found that the mean trait value between lianas and trees differed significantly in four of the ten functional traits. Lianas differed from trees mainly in functional traits related to a faster resource acquisition life history strategy. However, the lack of difference in the remaining six functional traits indicates that lianas are not restricted to the fast end of the plant life–history continuum. Differences in functional traits between lianas and trees suggest these plant guilds may coexist in tropical forests by specializing in different life–history strategies, but there is still a significant overlap in the life–history strategies between these two competing guilds.

Comments

Published version. Diversity, Vol. 12, No. 10 (October 2020): 397. DOI. This article is © MDPI. Used with permission.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Mello, Felipe N. A.; Estrada Villegas, Sergio; DeFilippis, David M.; and Schnitzer, Stefan A., "Can Functional Traits Explain Plant Coexistence? A Case Study with Tropical Lianas and Trees" (2020). Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications. 831.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/bio_fac/831