Environment differentially affects the functional and phylogenetic structures of plant communities in a dry evergreen Afromontane tropical forest
Data files
Sep 05, 2023 version files 6.75 KB
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Data_Mengesha.zip
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README.md
Abstract
Testing how local environmental conditions influence plant community assembly is important to understand the underlying mechanisms that promote and/or maintain biodiversity. Functional traits are used to find the broad spectrum of resource use strategies that plants use to respond to environmental variation. The patterns and drivers of plant community assembly through the lens of traits and phylogeny, however, remain to be studied in a uniquely biodiversity rich but poorly known fragmented dry Afromontane forest of Ethiopia. Here, we combined trait and community phylogenetic data from thirty sampling plots of 20 × 20 m size to determine the functional and phylogenetic structures and their drivers in a fragmented, human-dominated dry evergreen Afromontane forest. We found phylogenetic and functional clustering of plants in which the effect of environment was found to be trait specific. A weak phylogenetic signal for traits was detected suggesting that species resource use strategies may not be inferred using species phylogenetic distance. Additionally, we found functional traits to be weak in predicting species abundance distribution. Overall, while this study shows a non-random community assembly pattern, it also highlights the importance of deterministic processes being trait specific.
README: Environment differentially affects the functional and phylogenetic structures of plant communities in a dry evergreen Afromontane tropical forest
Data_Mengesha
Description of the data and file structure
These datasets were collected in the fragmented forest landscape of Central Gondar Zone of Amhara region in Northwest Ethiopia.
Datasets included:
1. Functional traits' data
- four (4) traits were measured for each species: Leaf area (LA, cm2), Specific leaf area (SLA, cm2 g-1), Leaf dry matter content (LDMC,g g-1) and Leaf thickness (LT, mm)
- The data structure is a species X trait data matrix
2. Species abundance data
- The abundance of each species in each plot is given.
- The data structure is a plot X species data matrix
3. Environmental data
- environmental data for each plot was measured: Total Nitrogen (TN, g kg-1), Total Phosphorus (TP, g kg-1), Total Potassium (TK, g kg-1), pH, Soil moisture (%), Elevation (m) and Slope (degree).
- The data structure a plot X environmental data matrix