Effect of climate on traits of dominant and rare tree species in the world’s forests

Abstract

Species’ traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. The extent to which traits of dominant and rare tree species differ remains untested across a broad environmental range, limiting our understanding of how species traits and the environment shape forest functional composition. We use a global dataset of tree composition of >22,000 forest plots and 11 traits of 1663 tree species to ask how locally dominant and rare species differ in their trait values, and how these differences are driven by climatic gradients in temperature and water availability in forest biomes across the globe. We find three consistent trait differences between locally dominant and rare species across all biomes; dominant species are taller, have softer wood and higher loading on the multivariate stem strategy axis (related to narrow tracheids and thick bark). The difference between traits of dominant and rare species is more strongly driven by temperature compared to water availability, as temperature might affect a larger number of traits. Therefore, climate change driven global temperature rise may have a strong effect on trait differences between dominant and rare tree species and may lead to changes in species abundances and therefore strong community reassembly.

This research has been funded by a grant from DOB Ecology. Swiss National Science Foundation, Ambizione grant #PZ00P3_193612 to DSM. JCS considers this work a contribution to Centre for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere (ECONOVO), funded by Danish National Research Foundation (grant DNRF173), and his VILLUM Investigator project \u201CBiodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World\u201D, funded by VILLUM FONDEN (grant 16549). The GFBI data from New Zealand were drawn from the Natural Forest plot data collected between January 2009 and March 2014 by the LUCAS programme for the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment and sourced from the New Zealand National Vegetation Survey Databank\u2019. Russian Science Foundation Project 21-46-07002 for the plot data collected in the Krasnoyarsk region. Data from National Forest Inventory of Instituto de Conserva\u00E7\u00E3o da Natureza (ICNF). FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, Project UIDB/04033/2020. GFBi plot data collection in the S\u00E3o Francisco de Paula National Forest, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil was financed by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient\u00EDfico e Tecnol\u00F3gico (CNPq)(project 520053/1998-2). ReVaTene project is funded by the Education and Research Ministry of C\u00F4te d\u2019Ivoire, as part of the Debt Reduction-Development Contracts (C2Ds) managed by IRD GFBI data from southern Ethiopia were collected with funding from the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMU) (IKI-1 project number 09 II 066ETH A Kaffeew\u00E4lder). GFBI data from Atlantic Forest, Brazil, was funded by the State of S\u00E3o Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP 03/12595-7) as part of the BIOTA Programme. COTEC/IF 41.065/2005 and IBAMA/CGEN 093/2005 granted permits to establish the permanent plots and collect data. The Exploratory plots of FunDivEUROPE (with sites in Germany, Finland, Poland, Romania, Italy and Spain) received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement 265171. Permission to work in the MAWAS region of Indonesia: the BOS Foundation, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), the Direktorat Fasilitasi Organisasi Politik dan Kemasyarakatan, Departamen Dalam Negri, and the BKSDA Palangkaraya. Funding sources: The American Society of Primatologists, the Duke University Graduate School, the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, the National Science Foundation (Grant no. 0452995), and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (Grant No. 7330). This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31800374), Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2019BC083) The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation [Agencia Espa\u00F1ola de Cooperaci\u00F3n Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID)] and Fundaci\u00F3n Biodiversidad, in cooperation with the governments of Syria and Lebanon. Projects D/9170/07, D/018222/08, D/023225/09 and D/032548/10 funded by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation [Agencia Espa\u00F1ola de Cooperaci\u00F3n Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID)] and Fundaci\u00F3n Biodiversidad, in cooperation with the Universidad Mayor de San Sim\u00F3n (UMSS), the FOMABO (Manejo Forestal en las Tierras Tropicales de Bolivia) project and CIMAL (Compa\u00F1\u00EDa Industrial Maderera Ltda.). All persons who made the Third Spanish Forest Inventory possible, especially the main coordinator, J. A. Villanueva (IFN3) The German Research Foundation (DFG) Priority Programme 1374 - Biodiversity Exploratories. Research was supported by APVV 20-0168 from the Slovak Research and Development Agency EC acknowledges funding from the project AdAgriF\u2014Advanced methods of greenhouse gases emission reduction and sequestration in agriculture and forest landscape for climate change mitigation (CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004635) We acknowledge collaboration with the International Boreal Forest Research Association (IBFRA, http://ibfra.org ). We thank the Minist\u00E8re des For\u00EAts, de la Faune et des Parcs du Qu\u00E9bec for access to their database of permanent sample plots. We thank the Amazon Forest Inventory Network (RAINFOR), the African Tropical Rainforest Observation Network, and the ForestPlots.net initiative for their contributions from Amazonian and African forests. These were supported by many projects, including an ERC Advanced Grant 291585 (\u201CT-FORCES\u201D) and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award to O.L.P.; RAINFOR plots were additionally supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), notably NERC Consortium Grants AMAZONICA (NE/F005806/1), TROBIT (NE/D005590/1), and BIO-RED (NE/N012542/1). This study was supported by GACR project 21-27454S from the Czech Science Foundation. Financial support from DBT, Govt. of India, through the project \u2018Mapping and quantitative assessment of geographic distribution and population status of plant resources of Eastern Himalayan region\u2019 is highly acknowledged. (Reference no. BT/PR7928/NDB/52/9/2006 dated 29.09.2006). Financial support from the Monafor network in Mexico was funded by many projects, including the National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR), Council of Science and Technology of the State of Durango (COCYTED), the Natural Environment Research Council, UK (NERC; NE/T011084/1), and local support of Ejidos and Comunidades. The French National Forest Inventory (NFI campaigns, raw data 2005 and following annual surveys) were downloaded by GFBI at https://inventaire-forestier.ign.fr/spip.php?rubrique159 (site accessed on 1 January 2015); the Italian Forest Inventory (2005 and 2015) were downloaded by GFBI at https://inventarioforestale.org/ . GA was supported by Italian National Recovery Plan through the National Biodiversity Future Centre. Financial support from the Czech Science Foundation (Project no. 21-26883S). Plots in Mato Grosso, Brazil, were supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), PELD-TRAN 441244/2016-5 and 441572/2020-0, and Mato Grosso State Research Support Foundation (FAPEMAT) \u2013 0346321/2021. C.A.J. and S.V. acknowledge support from the Brazilian National Research Council/CNPq (PELD process 403710/2012\u20130); NERC and the State of S\u00E3o Paulo Research Foundation/FAPESP as part of the projects Functional Gradient, PELD/BIOTA and ECOFOR (processes 2003/12595-7, 2012/51509-8 and 2012/51872-5, within the BIOTA/FAPESP Programme ( www.biota.org.br ); COTEC/IF 002.766/2013 and 010.631/2013 permits. H.Y.H.C. acknowledges the support from NSERC (RGPIN-2019\u201305109 and STPGP428641) and the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Ontario Research Fund (CFI36014). K.S. acknowledges the support of data acqusition from project: \u201CLIFE+ ForBioSensing PL Comprehensive monitoring of stand dynamics in Bia\u0142owie\u017Ca Forest supported with remote sensing techniques\u201D which is co-funded by the EU Life Plus programme (contract number LIFE13 ENV/PL/000048) and The National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management in Poland (contract number 485/2014/WN10/OP-NM-LF/D) OB was supported by Romania National Council for Higher Education Funding, CNFIS, project number CNFIS-FDI-2024-F-0155. TMF was supported by a grant from the Czech Science Foundation (19-14620S). GFBi plot data collection in Santa Catarina, Brazil (FlorestaSC), was financed by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient\u00EDfico e Tecnol\u00F3gico; FAPESC; SEMAE; FAO; SFB. RLC monitoring plots data in Costa Rica was supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the US National Science Foundation (NSF DEB-0424767, NSF DEB-0639393 and NSF DEB-1147429), US NASA Terrestrial Ecology Programme, and the University of Connecticut Research Foundation.