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

热带森林拥有显著的生物多样性，其特点是稀有物种数量特别多，优势物种很少。人为和自然干扰正日益威胁到这些森林的状况，并随之威胁到它们对人类福祉的益处。弄清物种相对丰富的原因是保护、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，该项目将确定功能性状如何影响树种多样性。这项研究产生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策。此外，该项目将支持对理科生的培训，并通过公开讲座鼓励年轻人从事热带生态方面的职业。确定物种相对丰度背后的生态力量一直是生态学中一个挥之不去的挑战。对这种模式的一种可能的解释是基于物种有不同的能力来利用在空间和时间上分布不均的资源。这种能力被认为与不同的属性密切相关，这些属性会影响个体的表现，并最终影响其分布和丰富程度。本研究的重点是了解生物性状如何影响物种相对丰度的模式。机体功能和表现之间的关系将在空间明确的背景下进行评估。方法将包括测量波多黎各沿海拔梯度分布的六种树木的生长和个体特征。本研究不仅考虑了物种特征，而且还考虑了物种特征信息，从而扩大了我们对物种相对丰度模式的生态机制的认识。这个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.