@Article{Fortunel_etal2014, author="Fortunel, C. and Paine, C.E.T. and Fine, P.V.A. and Kraft, N.J.B. and Baraloto, C.", title="Environmental factors predict community functional composition in Amazonian forests", journal="Journal of Ecology", year="2014", volume="102", number="1", pages="145--155", optkeywords="Amazonian landscape", optkeywords="Climatic and soil gradients", optkeywords="Determinants of plant community diversity and structure", optkeywords="Environmental filtering", optkeywords="Functional traits", optkeywords="Tree communities", optkeywords="Tropical forests", abstract="The consequences of biodiversity loss for ecosystem services largely depend on the functional identities of extirpated species. However, poor descriptions of spatial patterns of community functional composition across landscapes hamper accurate predictions, particularly in highly diverse tropical regions. Therefore, understanding how community functional composition varies across environmental gradients remains an important challenge. We sampled 15 functional traits in 800 Neotropical tree species across 13 forest plots representative of the broad climatic and soil gradients encompassed by three widespread lowland forest habitats (terra firme forests on clay-rich soils, seasonally flooded forests and white-sand forests) at opposite ends of Amazonia (Peru and French Guiana). We combined univariate and multivariate approaches to test the magnitude and predictability of environmental filtering on community leaf and wood functional composition. Directional shifts in community functional composition correlated with environmental changes across the 13 plots, with denser leaves, stems and roots in forests occurring in environments with limited water and soil-nutrient availability. Critically, these relationships allowed us to accurately predict the functional composition of 61 additional forest plots from environmental data alone. Synthesis. Environmental filtering consistently shapes the functional composition of highly diverse tropical forests at large scales across the terra firme, seasonally flooded and white-sand forests of lowland Amazonia. Environmental factors drive and allow the prediction of variation in community functional composition among habitat types in Amazonian forests. {\textcopyright} 2013 British Ecological Society.", optnote="Export Date: 31 December 2013; Source: Scopus; Coden: Jecoa; doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12160; Language of Original Document: English; Correspondence Address: Fortunel, C.; INRA, UMR Ecologie des For{\^e}ts de Guyane, BP 709, Kourou Cedex, 97387, France; email: claire.fortunel@ecofog.gf; Funding Details: DEB-0743103/0743800, NSF, National Science Foundation; References: Agrawal, A.A., Fishbein, M., Plant defense syndromes (2006) Ecology, 87, pp. S132-S149; Anderson, L.O., Malhi, Y., Ladle, R.J., Aragao, L., Shimabukuro, Y., Phillips, O.L., Influence of landscape heterogeneity on spatial patterns of wood productivity, wood specific density and above ground biomass in Amazonia (2009) Biogeosciences, 6, pp. 1883-1902; Asner, G.P., Alencar, A., Drought impacts on the Amazon forest: the remote sensing perspective (2010) New Phytologist, 187, pp. 569-578; Asner, G.P., Loarie, S.R., Heyder, U., Combined effects of climate and land-use change on the future of humid tropical forests (2010) Conservation Letters, 3, pp. 395-403; Baraloto, C., Paine, C.E.T., Pati{\~n}o, S., Bonal, D., Herault, B., Chave, J., Functional trait variation and sampling strategies in species-rich plant communities (2010) Functional Ecology, 24, pp. 208-216; Baraloto, C., Paine, C.E.T., Poorter, L., Beauchene, J., Bonal, D., Domenach, A.M., H{\'e}rault, B., Chave, J., Decoupled leaf and stem economics in rain forest trees (2010) Ecology Letters, 13, pp. 1338-1347; Baraloto, C., Rabaud, S., Molto, Q., Blanc, L., Fortunel, C., H{\'e}rault, B., Davila, N., Fine, P.V.A., Disentangling stand and environmental correlates of aboveground biomass in Amazonian forests (2011) Global Change Biology, 17, pp. 2677-2688; Baraloto, C., Molto, Q., Rabaud, S., H{\'e}rault, B., Valencia, R., Blanc, L., Fine, P.V.A., Thompson, J., Rapid simultaneous estimation of aboveground biomass and tree diversity across Neotropical forests: a comparison of field inventory methods (2013) Biotropica, 45, pp. 288-298; Belyea, L.R., Lancaster, J., Assembly rules within a contingent ecology (1999) Oikos, 86, pp. 402-416; Berry, S.L., Roderick, M.L., Estimating mixtures of leaf functional types using continental-scale satellite and climatic data (2002) Global Ecology and Biogeography, 11, pp. 23-39; Brando, P.M., Nepstad, D.C., Balch, J.K., Bolker, B., Christman, M.C., Coe, M., Putz, F.E., Fire-induced tree mortality in a neotropical forest: the roles of bark traits, tree size, wood density and fire behavior (2012) Global Change Biology, 18, pp. 630-641; Burnham, K.P., Anderson, D.R., Multimodel inference -- understanding AIC and BIC in model selection (2004) Sociological Methods \& Research, 33, pp. 261-304; Calcagno, V., de Mazancourt, C., glmulti: an R package for easy automated model selection with (generalized) linear models (2010) Journal of Statistical Software, 34, pp. 1-29; Chapin, F.S., BretHarte, M.S., Hobbie, S.E., Zhong, H.L., Plant functional types as predictors of transient responses of arctic vegetation to global change (1996) Journal of Vegetation Science, 7, pp. 347-358; Chaturvedi, R.K., Raghubanshi, A.S., Singh, J.S., Leaf attributes and tree growth in a tropical dry forest (2011) Journal of Vegetation Science, 22, pp. 917-931; Chave, J., Coomes, D., Jansen, S., Lewis, S.L., Swenson, N.G., Zanne, A.E., Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum (2009) Ecology Letters, 12, pp. 351-366; Cingolani, A.M., Cabido, M., Gurvich, D.E., Renison, D., Diaz, S., Filtering processes in the assembly of plant communities: are species presence and abundance driven by the same traits? 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