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Martin Sykes

Professor emeritus

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A global meta-analysis of the relative extent of intraspecific trait variation in plant communities.

Author

  • Andrew Siefert
  • Cyrille Violle
  • Loïc Chalmandrier
  • Cécile H Albert
  • Adrien Taudiere
  • Alex Fajardo
  • Lonnie W Aarssen
  • Christopher Baraloto
  • Marcos B Carlucci
  • Marcus V Cianciaruso
  • Vinícius de L Dantas
  • Francesco de Bello
  • Leandro D S Duarte
  • Carlos R Fonseca
  • Grégoire T Freschet
  • Stéphanie Gaucherand
  • Nicolas Gross
  • Kouki Hikosaka
  • Benjamin Jackson
  • Vincent Jung
  • Chiho Kamiyama
  • Masatoshi Katabuchi
  • Steven W Kembel
  • Emilie Kichenin
  • Nathan J B Kraft
  • Anna Lagerström
  • Yoann Le Bagousse-Pinguet
  • Yuanzhi Li
  • Norman Mason
  • Julie Messier
  • Tohru Nakashizuka
  • Jacob McC Overton
  • Duane A Peltzer
  • I M Pérez-Ramos
  • Valério D Pillar
  • Honor C Prentice
  • Sarah Richardson
  • Takehiro Sasaki
  • Brandon S Schamp
  • Christian Schöb
  • Bill Shipley
  • Maja Sundqvist
  • Martin Sykes
  • Marie Vandewalle
  • David A Wardle
Show all

Summary, in English

Recent studies have shown that accounting for intraspecific trait variation (ITV) may better address major questions in community ecology. However, a general picture of the relative extent of ITV compared to interspecific trait variation in plant communities is still missing. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of the relative extent of ITV within and among plant communities worldwide, using a data set encompassing 629 communities (plots) and 36 functional traits. Overall, ITV accounted for 25% of the total trait variation within communities and 32% of the total trait variation among communities on average. The relative extent of ITV tended to be greater for whole-plant (e.g. plant height) vs. organ-level traits and for leaf chemical (e.g. leaf N and P concentration) vs. leaf morphological (e.g. leaf area and thickness) traits. The relative amount of ITV decreased with increasing species richness and spatial extent, but did not vary with plant growth form or climate. These results highlight global patterns in the relative importance of ITV in plant communities, providing practical guidelines for when researchers should include ITV in trait-based community and ecosystem studies.

Department/s

  • Biodiversity
  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate

Publishing year

2015

Language

English

Pages

1406-1419

Publication/Series

Ecology Letters

Volume

18

Issue

12

Document type

Journal article review

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • Ecology

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1461-023X