Population Biology Commons^™

Ontogenetic Trait Variation Influences Tree Community Assembly Across Environmental Gradients, Marko J. Spasojevic, Elizabeth A. Yablon, Brad Oberle, Jonathan A. Myers

Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations

Intraspecific trait variation is hypothesized to influence the relative importance of community assembly mechanisms. However, few studies have explicitly considered how intraspecific trait variation among ontogenetic stages influences community assembly across environmental gradients. Because the relative importance of abiotic and biotic assembly mechanisms can differ among ontogenetic stages within and across environments, ontogenetic trait variation may have an important influence on patterns of functional diversity and inferred assembly mechanisms. We tested the hypothesis that variation in functional diversity across a topo-edaphic gradient differs among ontogenetic stages and that these patterns reflect a shift in the relative importance of different assembly …