DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Disentangling the influence of functional similarity on patterns of species abundance in tree communities

热带森林蕴藏着极其丰富的生物多样性，其特点是稀有物种数量特别多，优势物种寥寥无几。人类和自然的干扰正日益威胁着这些森林的状况及其对人类福祉的好处。弄清物种相对丰富度的原因是保护、维持和预测生物多样性命运的关键一步。通过研究广泛分布在波多黎各各地的6个树种的650棵树的种内性状变异和个体生长，该项目将确定功能特征如何影响树种多样性。从这项研究中得到的见解将有助于促进致力于防止热带森林生物多样性丧失的决定。此外，该项目将支持对理科学生的培训，以及通过公开演讲鼓励年轻人从事热带生态事业的外展工作。确定物种相对丰富度背后的生态力量一直是生态学中挥之不去的挑战。对这种模式的一个潜在解释是，物种在开发空间和时间上不同分布的资源方面具有不同的能力。这种能力预计会与不同的属性密切相关，这些属性会影响个体的表现，最终影响个体的分布和丰度。这项研究的重点是了解生物特征如何影响物种相对丰度的模式。组织功能和表现之间的关系将在空间上明确的背景下使用来评估。方法将包括测量波多黎各沿海拔梯度分布的六种树的个体生长和特征。这项拟议的研究不仅考虑了物种的特性，还考虑了特征信息，从而扩展了我们对物种相对丰度模式背后的生态机制的了解。该项目的结果将对自然资源管理产生直接影响。

Tropical forests harbor a remarkable level of biodiversity characterized by an exceptional number of rare species and few dominant species. Human and natural disturbances are increasingly threatening the condition of these forests and with it, their benefits to human well-being. Disentangling the causes of species relative abundance constitutes a critical step in order to protect, maintain and predict the fate of biodiversity. By studying within-species trait variation and individual growth of 650 individual trees from six species broadly distributed throughout Puerto Rico, this project will determine how functional traits influence tree species diversity. The resulting insights from this research will help to foster decisions devoted to preventing biodiversity loss in tropical forests. Further, this project will support training for science students as well as outreach efforts via public talks encouraging young people to pursue career in tropical ecology. Identifying the ecological forces that underlie species relative abundances has been a lingering challenging in ecology. One potential explanation for this pattern is based on the idea that species have differential abilities to exploit resources heterogeneously distributed in the space and time. This ability is expected to be strongly associated with different attributes that affect the performance of individuals and ultimately their distribution and abundance. This study focuses on understanding how organismal traits influence patterns of species relative abundance. The relationship between organismal function and performance will be evaluated using in a spatially explicit context. Methods will include measuring the growth and traits of individual trees for six species distributed along an altitudinal gradient in Puerto Rico. The proposed research will expand our knowledge of the ecological mechanisms underlying patterns of species relative abundance by considering not only species identities but also trait information. Results from this project will have direct implications for natural resource management.