From plant traits to plant communities

从植物性状到植物群落

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-05299
• 负责人: Shipley, JohnWilliam(Bill)
• 金额: $ 2.91万
• 依托单位: Université de Sherbrooke
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=715262
• 关键词: plant; traits; communities

This proposal concerns research into (i) how different plant traits are related to each other when comparing between species, (ii) how different values of plant traits determine how well they can survive, grow and reproduce in a given environment, (iii) how different environments will select for different trait values and (iv) how this process determines the assembly of plant species into ecological communities. Different plant species, and different types of plants, are typical of different habitats. An important, and unattained, goal of plant ecology is to predict which species will be dominant, which will be subordinate, and which will be absent, in different sites and environments (community “assembly”). I have developed a mathematical model designed to predict this phenomenon and to understand how it arises as a consequence of trait selection in different environments. This statistical model (“CATS”) links plant functional traits, environmental variables, and regional species pools to produce quantitative predictions of relative abundance. In the next 5 years my team will refine CATS using the understory plant communities of deciduous woods in southern Quebec, which exist as islands in an agricultural “sea” and that differ in terms of size, isolation and age. In this system the three main forces of community assembly (dispersal limitation, trait-based selection, and demographic stochasticity) should be especially strong. We will also test an hypothesis which purports to explain the causal origin of a well-known and very general pattern of covariation between leaf traits, the “worldwide leaf economic spectrum”. This hypothesis explains this pattern as a consequence of "design constraints" on how leaves of vascular plants are constructed. Finally, my students and I will refine and test a new method of quantifying one important environmental selection agent (soil fertility) which is a fundamental environmental selection agent in plant ecology.

该提案涉及以下方面的研究：（i）在物种之间进行比较时，不同植物性状如何相互关联；（ii）植物性状的不同值如何决定它们在给定环境中的生存、生长和繁殖能力；（iii）不同的环境将如何选择不同的性状值；以及（iv）这一过程如何决定植物物种组装成生态群落。 不同的 植物种类和不同类型的植物具有不同的典型特征 栖息地。植物生态学的一个重要且尚未实现的目标是预测 哪些物种将成为优势物种，哪些物种将成为从属物种，哪些物种将被 缺席，在不同的地点和环境（社区“集会”）。 我开发了一个数学模型来预测这种现象 了解不同环境中特质选择的结果是如何产生的。 这 统计模型（“CATS”）将植物功能特征、环境特征联系起来 变量和区域物种库来产生定量预测 相对丰度。 未来5年 我的团队将利用以下植物的林下植物群落来完善 CATS 魁北克南部的落叶林，作为农业“海洋”中的岛屿而存在 并且在规模、隔离和年龄方面有所不同。 在这个体系中，三大主力 群落组装（扩散限制、基于性状的选择和 人口随机性）应该特别强。 我们还将检验一个假设，该假设旨在解释叶片性状之间众所周知且非常普遍的共变模式（“全球叶片经济谱”）的因果起源。 该假设将这种模式解释为维管束植物叶子的构建方式“设计限制”的结果。 最后，我和我的学生将完善并测试一个新的 量化一种重要环境选择剂（土壤）的方法 生育力），它是植物生态学中基本的环境选择剂。