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A taxonomic comparison of local habitat niches of tropical trees

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Abstract

The integration of ecology and evolutionary biology requires an understanding of the evolutionary lability in species’ ecological niches. For tropical trees, specialization for particular soil resource and topographic conditions is an important part of the habitat niche, influencing the distributions of individual species and overall tree community structure at the local scale. However, little is known about how these habitat niches are related to the evolutionary history of species. We assessed the relationship between taxonomic rank and tree species’ soil resource and topographic niches in eight large (24–50 ha) tropical forest dynamics plots. Niche overlap values, indicating the similarity of two species’ distributions along soil or topographic axes, were calculated for all pairwise combinations of co-occurring tree species at each study site. Congeneric species pairs often showed greater niche overlap (i.e., more similar niches) than non-congeneric pairs along both soil and topographic axes, though significant effects were found for only five sites based on Mantel tests. No evidence for taxonomic effects was found at the family level. Our results indicate that local habitat niches of trees exhibit varying degrees of phylogenetic signal at different sites, which may have important ramifications for the phylogenetic structure of these communities.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Center for Tropical Forest Science for their collection and organization of the tree census data used in this study. The BCI forest dynamics research project was made possible by National Science Foundation grants to Stephen P. Hubbell: DEB-0640386, DEB-0425651, DEB-0346488, DEB-0129874, DEB-00753102, DEB-9909347, DEB-9615226, DEB-9615226, DEB-9405933, DEB-9221033, DEB-9100058, DEB-8906869, DEB-8605042, DEB-8206992, DEB-7922197, support from the Center for Tropical Forest Science, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Small World Institute Fund. Funding for soils work was provided by the US National Science Foundation Grants DEB 0211004, DEB 0211115, DEB 0212284, DEB 0212818, and OISE 0314581, the soils initiative of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and a CTFS grant to cover collection and extraction of soils from Korup. The experiments comply with the current laws of the countries in which they were performed. We also thank editor Walter Carson and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript.

Author contributions

GBC, DK, DWT, SM, NG, SG, SB, SK, AY, MNNS, RV, HN, SJD, and SPH coordinated collection of tree census and topographic data, JWD, KEH, JBY, and RJ designed the soil sampling protocol, BLT, HN, GBC, SM, SB, SK and AY collected soil data, RJ kriged the soil data, CAB designed and carried out the statistical analysis with JWD as advisor, CAB wrote the manuscript, and JWD and SWK contributed substantially to revisions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois, 505 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Claire A. Baldeck

  2. Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, 265 Morrill Hall, 505 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Claire A. Baldeck & James W. Dalling

  3. Département des sciences biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, C.P. 8888, Succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, QC, H3C3P8, Canada

    Steven W. Kembel

  4. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Ancón, Republic of Panama

    Kyle E. Harms, Benjamin L. Turner, Stuart J. Davies & James W. Dalling

  5. Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, 202 Life Sciences Building, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Kyle E. Harms

  6. Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, 16 Fernow Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Joseph B. Yavitt

  7. Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, P.O. BCKV Campus Main Office, Mohanpur, Nadia, West Bengal, 741252, India

    Robert John

  8. Department of Plant and Animal Sciences, University of Buea, P.O. Box 63, Buea, Republic of Cameroon

    George B. Chuyong

  9. Center for Tropical Forest Science, Arnold Arboretum Asia Program, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    David Kenfack & Stuart J. Davies

  10. Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331-2902, USA

    Duncan W. Thomas

  11. Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, 20400, Sri Lanka

    Sumedha Madawala, Nimal Gunatilleke & Savitri Gunatilleke

  12. National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation Department, Chatuchak, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand

    Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin

  13. Faculty of Science and Technology, Thammasat University (Rangsit), Klongluang, Patumtani, 12121, Thailand

    Somboon Kiratiprayoon

  14. Faculty of Plantation and Agrotechnology, University Technology MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor, 40450, Malaysia

    Adzmi Yaacob

  15. Forest Environment Division, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, Kepong, Selangor Darul Ehsan, 52109, Malaysia

    Mohd. N. Nur Supardi

  16. Laboratorio de Ecología de Plantas y Herbario QCA, Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Apartado, 17-01-2184, Quito, Ecuador

    Renato Valencia & Hugo Navarrete

  17. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    Stephen P. Hubbell

Authors
  1. Claire A. Baldeck
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  2. Steven W. Kembel
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  3. Kyle E. Harms
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  7. George B. Chuyong
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  17. Renato Valencia
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  19. Stuart J. Davies
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  20. Stephen P. Hubbell
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  21. James W. Dalling
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Claire A. Baldeck.

Additional information

Communicated by Walt Carson.

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Baldeck, C.A., Kembel, S.W., Harms, K.E. et al. A taxonomic comparison of local habitat niches of tropical trees. Oecologia 173, 1491–1498 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-013-2709-5

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