Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-14-2016
Publication Title
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Keywords
Tropical tree, Trait, Convergent evolution, Divergent selection, Phylogenetic signal
ISSN
0962-8452
Volume
283
Issue/No.
1844
First Page
1
Last Page
9
Abstract
Lineages tend to retain ecological characteristics of their ancestors through time. However, for some traits, selection during evolutionary history may have also played a role in determining trait values. To address the relative importance of these processes requires large-scale quantification of traits and evolutionary relationships among species. The Amazonian tree flora comprises a high diversity of angiosperm lineages and species with widely differing life-history characteristics, providing an excellent system to investigate the combined influences of evolutionary heritage and selection in determining trait variation. We used trait data related to the major axes of life-history variation among tropical trees (e.g. growth and mortality rates) from 577 inventory plots in closed-canopy forest, mapped onto a phylogenetic hypothesis spanning more than 300 genera including all major angiosperm clades to test for evolutionary constraints on traits. We found significant phylogenetic signal (PS) for all traits, consistent with evolutionarily related genera having more similar characteristics than expected by chance. Although there is also evidence for repeated evolution of pioneer and shade tolerant life-history strategies within independent lineages, the existence of significant PS allows clearer predictions of the links between evolutionary diversity, ecosystem function and the response of tropical forests to global change.
Additional Comments
European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme project #s: 283080 ‘GEOCARBON’, and 282664, ‘AMAZALERT’; Natural Environment Research Council grant #: ‘AMAZONICA’ (NE/F005806/1), ‘TROBIT’ (NE/D005590/1), ‘Niche Evolution of South American Trees’ (NE/I028122/1); CNPq project #: PELD-403725/2012-7; Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - Brasil grant #: 117913-6; Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship #: RF-2015-653
NSUWorks Citation
Fernanda Coelho de Souza, Kyle G. Dexter, Oliver L. Phillips, Roel J. W. Brienen, Jerome Chave, David Galbraith, Gabriela Lopez Gonzalez, Abel Monteagudo M., R. Toby Pennington, Lourens Poorter, Miguel Alexiades, Esteban Alvarez Davila, Ana Andrade, Luiz E. O. C. Aragao, Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, Eric Arets, Gerardo A. Aymard C., Christopher Baraloto, Jorcely Barroso, Damien Bonal, Rene G. A. Boot, Jose Luis C. Camargo, James A. Comiskey, Fernando Cornejo Valverde, Plinio Barbosa de Camargo, Anthony Di Fiore, Fernando Elias, Terry L. Erwin, Ted R. Feldpausch, Leandro Ferreira, Nikolaos M. Fyllas, Manuel Gloor, Bruno Herault, Rafael Herrera, Niro Higuchi, Euridice N. Honorio Coronado, Timothy Killeen, William F. Laurance, Susan G. W. Laurance, Jon Lloyd, Thomas E. Lovejoy, Yadvinder Malhi, Leandro Maracahipes, Beatriz S. Marimon, Ben-Hur Marimon Jr., Casimiro Mendoza, Paulo S. Morandi, David Neill, Percy Nunez Vargas, Edmar A. Oliveira, Eddie Lenza, Walter Palacios, Maria C. Penuela-Mora, John J. Pipoly III, Nigel C. A. Pitman, Adriana Prieto, Carlos A. Quesada, Hirma Ramirez-Angulo, Agustin Rudas, Kalle Ruokolainen, Rafael P. Salomao, Marcos Silveira, Juliana Stropp, Hans ter Steege, Raquel Thomas, Peter van der Hout, Geertje van der Heijden, Peter J. van der Meer, Rodolfo V. Vasquez, Simone A. Vieira, Emilio Vilanova, Vincent A. Vos, Ophelia Wang, Kenneth R. Young, and Roderick J. Zagt. 2016. Evolutionary Heritage Influences Amazon Tree Ecology .Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , (1844) : 1 -9. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/940.
ORCID ID
0000-0002-7977-9496
ResearcherID
C-6533-2012
DOI
10.1098/rspb.2016.1587
Comments
©2016 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.