The plant traits that drive ecosystems: Evidence from three continents

By Sandra Díaz, J. Hodgson, K. Thompson, Marcelo R. Cabido, J. H. C. Cornelissen, A. Jalili, G. Montserrat-Martí, J. P. Grime, F. Zarrinkamar, Y. Asri and 29 more. 2004

1,581 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Question: A set of easily-measured (‘soft’) plant traits has been identified as potentially useful predictors of ecosystem functioning in previous studies. Here we aimed to discover whether the screening techniques remain operational in widely contrasted circumstances, to test for the existence of axes of variation in the particular sets of traits, and to test for their links with ‘harder’ traits of proven importance to ecosystem functioning. Location: central-western Argentina, central England, northern upland Iran, and north-eastern Spain. Recurrent patterns of ecological specialization: Through ordination of a matrix of 640 vascular plant taxa by 12 standardized traits, we detected similar patterns of specialization in the four floras. The first PCA axis was identified as an axis of resource capture, usage and release. PCA axis 2 appeared to be a size-related axis. Individual PCA for each country showed that the same traits remained valuable as predictors of resource capture and utilization in all of them, despite their major differences in climate, biogeography and land-use. The results were not significantly driven by particular taxa: the main traits determining PCA axis 1 were very similar in eudicotyledons and monocotyledons and Asteraceae, Fabaceae and Poaceae. Links between recurrent suites of ‘soft’ traits and ‘hard’ traits: The validity of PCA axis 1 as a key predictor of resource capture and utilization was tested by comparisons between this axis and values of more rigorously established predictors (‘hard’ traits) for the floras of Argentina and England. PCA axis 1 was correlated with variation in relative growth rate, leaf nitrogen content, and litter decomposition rate. It also coincided with palatability to model generalist herbivores. Therefore, location on PCA axis 1 can be linked to major ecosystem processes in those habitats where the plants are dominant. Conclusion: We confirm the existence at the global scale of a major axis of evolutionary specialization, previously recognised in several local floras. This axis reflects a fundamental trade-off between rapid acquisition of resources and conservation of resources within well-protected tissues. These major trends of specialization were maintained across different environmental situations (including differences in the proximate causes of low productivity, i.e. drought or mineral nutrient deficiency). The trends were also consistent across floras and major phylogenetic groups, and were linked with traits directly relevant to ecosystem processes. Nomenclature: Bolòs et al. (1990); Flora Iranica (1963 onwards); Stace (1991); Zuloaga et al. (1994); Zuloaga & Morrone (1996, 1999).

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cd8a98bd671f66999552b6f0bfbce8553e4ace1a

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Global and Planetary Change

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

Citations in the corpus

Plant functional group composition and large-scale species richness in European agricultural landscapes (2008, background): “…or anthropogenic factors, the ad hoc groups are deemed to be most promising in addressing the variation of general plant communities, i.e. at landscape or global scales (Noble & Gitay 1996; Díaz & Cabido 1997; Grime et al. 1997; Díaz et al. 2004; Hunt et al. 2004; Kahmen & Poschlod 2004).”
Is successional research nearing its climax? New approaches for understanding dynamic communities (2015, background): “Traits as a way to integrate successional drivers The focus on species functional traits has been hailed as a unifying perspective in ecology (e.g. Weiher et al. 1999; Diaz et al. 2004; Wright et al. 2004; McGill et al. 2006; Westoby & Wright 2006; Shipley 2010).”
Traits Without Borders: Integrating Functional Diversity Across Scales. (2016, background): “However, not all the combinations of traits confer equal fitness [36], which implies that trait values within a species [50], community [53], region [54], or even at the global scale [55] are not equally represented across the whole range of possible values (Box 1).”
Ecology of Leaf Longevity (2011, background): “The past decade has seen a flood of papers discussing linkages between various traits and ecosystem function: useful entry points to this literature include Lavorel and Garnier (2002), Díaz et al. (2004), Wright et al. (2005b), Quetier et al. (2007), and Suding and Goldstein (2008).”
Community assembly by limiting similarity vs. competitive hierarchies: testing the consequences of dispersion of individual traits (2014, background): “In addition to manipulation of trait dispersion, we also manipulated the community-wide trait mean because extent and effects of trait dispersion may be contingent on mean values of that trait (see Ricotta & Moretti 2011), which, in turn, is often determined by the environment (Díaz et al. 2004).”
The intrinsic dimensionality of plant traits and its relevance to community assembly (2014, methodology): “analysis for two or three dimensions (Grime et al. 1997; Ackerly 2004; Diaz et al. 2004; Laughlin et al. 2010), but some have reported up to four (Craine et al.”
Plant allometry, stoichiometry and the temperature-dependence of primary productivity (2005, background): “…the importance of developing quantitative frameworks relating plant functional diversity and community structure to ecosystem function based on broad-scale, comparative investigations (Jordan, 1971; Lieth, 1975; Ehleringer & Field, 1993; Schulze et al., 1994; Reich et al., 1997; Diaz et al., 2004).”
Specific leaf area explains differences in leaf traits between congeneric savanna and forest trees (2005, background): “The SLA and nutrient concentrations tend to be correlated with litter nutrient concentrations (Wright & Westoby 2003), decomposition rate (Diaz et al. 2004), and palatability (Cornelissen et al.”