Functional Traits of a Rainforest Vascular Epiphyte Community: Trait Covariation and Indications for Host Specificity
Open Access
- 23 February 2021
- Vol. 13 (2), 97
- https://doi.org/10.3390/d13020097
Abstract
Trait matching between interacting species may foster diversity. Thus, high epiphyte diversity in tropical forests may be partly due to the high diversity of trees and some degree of host specificity. However, possible trait matching between epiphyte and host is basically unexplored. Since the epiphytic habitat poses particular challenges to plants, their trait correlations should differ from terrestrial plants, but to what extent is unclear as epiphytes are underrepresented or missing in the large trait databases. We quantified 28 traits of 99 species of vascular epiphytes in a lowland forest in Panama that were related to plant size, leaf, stem, and root morphology; photosynthetic mode; and nutrient concentrations. We analyzed trait covariation, community weighted means, and functional diversity for assemblages on stems and in crowns of four tree species. We found intriguing differences between epiphytes and terrestrial plants regarding trait covariation in trait relations between plant maximal height, stem specific density, specific root length, and root tissue den-sity, i.e., stem and root economic spectra. Regarding host specificity, we found strong evidence for environmental filtering of epiphyte traits, but only in tree crowns. On stems, community weighted means differed in only one case, whereas > 2/3 of all traits differed in tree crowns. Although we were only partly able to interpret these differences in the light of tree trait differences, these findings mark an important step towards a functional understanding of epiphyte host specificity.Keywords
Funding Information
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (WA 3936/1-1)
This publication has 77 references indexed in Scilit:
- Fiji: an open-source platform for biological-image analysisNature Methods, 2012
- A Robust Procedure for Comparing Multiple Means under Heteroscedasticity in Unbalanced DesignsPLOS ONE, 2010
- Global patterns of foliar nitrogen isotopes and their relationships with climate, mycorrhizal fungi, foliar nutrient concentrations, and nitrogen availabilityNew Phytologist, 2009
- Maximum leaf conductance driven by CO 2 effects on stomatal size and density over geologic timeProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2009
- Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrumEcology Letters, 2009
- Responses of leaf stomatal density to water status and its relationship with photosynthesis in a grassJournal of Experimental Botany, 2008
- Land-plant ecology on the basis of functional traitsTrends in Ecology & Evolution, 2006
- Neither Host-specific nor Random: Vascular Epiphytes on Three Tree Species in a Panamanian Lowland ForestAnnals of Botany, 2006
- The worldwide leaf economics spectrumNature, 2004
- Plant Ecological Strategies: Some Leading Dimensions of Variation Between SpeciesAnnual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 2002