TY  - JOUR
A1  - Dantas de Paula, Mateus
A1  - Forrest, Matthew
A1  - Langan, Liam
A1  - Bendix, Jörg
A1  - Homeier, Jürgen
A1  - Velescu, Andre
A1  - Wilcke, Wolfgang
A1  - Hickler, Thomas
T1  - Nutrient cycling drives plant community trait assembly and ecosystem functioning in a tropical mountain biodiversity hotspot
T2  - The new phytologist
N2  - Community trait assembly in highly diverse tropical rainforests is still poorly understood. Based on more than a decade of field measurements in a biodiversity hotspot of southern Ecuador, we implemented plant trait variation and improved soil organic matter dynamics in a widely used dynamic vegetation model (the Lund-Potsdam-Jena General Ecosystem Simulator, LPJ-GUESS) to explore the main drivers of community assembly along an elevational gradient. In the model used here (LPJ-GUESS-NTD, where NTD stands for nutrient-trait dynamics), each plant individual can possess different trait combinations, and the community trait composition emerges via ecological sorting. Further model developments include plant growth limitation by phosphorous (P) and mycorrhizal nutrient uptake. The new model version reproduced the main observed community trait shift and related vegetation processes along the elevational gradient, but only if nutrient limitations to plant growth were activated. In turn, when traits were fixed, low productivity communities emerged due to reduced nutrient-use efficiency. Mycorrhizal nutrient uptake, when deactivated, reduced net primary production (NPP) by 61–72% along the gradient. Our results strongly suggest that the elevational temperature gradient drives community assembly and ecosystem functioning indirectly through its effect on soil nutrient dynamics and vegetation traits. This illustrates the importance of considering these processes to yield realistic model predictions.
KW  - dynamic vegetation model
KW  - mycorrhiza
KW  - nutrient cycling
KW  - plant community assembly
KW  - plant functional traits
KW  - tropical montane forests (TMF)
Y1  - 2021
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/63970
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-639701
SN  - 1469-8137
N1  - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Grant Number: FOR2730
VL  - 232
IS  - 2
SP  - 551
EP  - 566
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Oxford [u.a.]
ER  -