Effect of climate on traits of dominant and rare tree species in the world's forests.
Hordijk I., Poorter L., Liang J., Reich PB., de-Miguel S., Nabuurs G-J., Gamarra JGP., Chen HYH., Zhou M., Wiser SK., Pretzsch H., Paquette A., Picard N., Hérault B., Bastin J-F., Alberti G., Abegg M., Adou Yao YC., Almeyda Zambrano AM., Alvarado BV., Alvarez-Davila E., Alvarez-Loayza P., Alves LF., Amaral I., Ammer C., Antón-Fernández C., Araujo-Murakami A., Arroyo L., Avitabile V., Aymard C GA., Baker T., Banki O., Barroso J., Bastian ML., Birigazzi L., Birnbaum P., Bitariho R., Boeckx P., Bongers F., Bouriaud O., Brancalion PHS., Brandl S., Brearley FQ., Brienen R., Broadbent EN., Bruelheide H., Cazzolla Gatti R., Cesar RG., Cesljar G., Chazdon RL., Chisholm C., Cienciala E., Clark CJ., Clark DB., Colletta G., Coomes D., Cornejo Valverde F., Corral-Rivas JJ., Crim P., Cumming J., Dayanandan S., de Gasper AL., Decuyper M., Derroire G., DeVries B., Djordjevic I., Dourdain A., Dolezal J., Engone Obiang NL., Enquist B., Eyre T., Fandohan AB., Fayle TM., Ferreira LV., Feldpausch TR., Finér L., Fischer M., Fletcher C., Frizzera L., Gianelle D., Glick HB., Harris D., Hector A., Hemp A., Herbohn J., Hillers A., Honorio Coronado EN., Hui C., Cho H., Ibanez T., Jung I., Imai N., Jagodzinski AM., Jaroszewicz B., Johannsen V., Joly CA., Jucker T., Karminov V., Kartawinata K., Kearsley E., Kenfack D., Kennard D., Kepfer-Rojas S., Keppel G., Khan ML., Killeen T., Kim HS., Kitayama K., Köhl M., Korjus H., Kraxner F., Laarmann D., Lang M., Lewis S., Lu H., Lukina N., Maitner B., Malhi Y., Marcon E., Marimon BS., Marimon-Junior BH., Marshall AR., Martin E., Martynenko O., Meave JA., Melo-Cruz O., Mendoza C., Merow C., Miscicki S., Monteagudo Mendoza A., Moreno V., Mukul SA., Mundhenk P., Nava-Miranda MG., Neill D., Neldner V., Nevenic R., Ngugi M., Niklaus PA., Oleksyn J., Ontikov P., Ortiz-Malavasi E., Pan Y., Parada-Gutierrez A., Parfenova E., Park M., Parren M., Parthasarathy N., Peri PL., Pfautsch S., Phillips OL., Piedade MT., Piotto D., Pitman NCA., Pollastrini M., Polo I., Poulsen AD., Poulsen JR., Arevalo FR., Restrepo-Correa Z., Rodeghiero M., Rolim S., Roopsind A., Rovero F., Rutishauser E., Saikia P., Salas-Eljatib C., Schall P., Schepaschenko D., Scherer-Lorenzen M., Schmid B., Schöngart J., Searle EB., Seben V., Selvi F., Serra-Diaz JM., Sheil D., Shvidenko A., Silva-Espejo J., Silveira M., Singh J., Sist P., Slik F., Sonké B., Souza AF., Ter Steege H., Stereńczak K., Svenning J-C., Svoboda M., Swanepoel B., Targhetta N., Tchebakova N., Thomas R., Tikhonova E., Umunay P., Usoltsev V., Valencia R., Valladares F., van der Plas F., Van Do T., Van Nuland ME., Vasquez Martinez R., Verbeeck H., Viana H., Vibrans AC., Vieira S., von Gadow K., Wang H-F., Watson J., Werner GDA., Wittmann F., Wortel V., Zagt R., Zawila-Niedzwiecki T., Zhang C., Zhao X., Zhu Z-X., Zo-Bi IC., Maynard DS., Crowther TW.
Species' traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. The extent to which traits of dominant and rare tree species differ remains untested across a broad environmental range, limiting our understanding of how species traits and the environment shape forest functional composition. We use a global dataset of tree composition of >22,000 forest plots and 11 traits of 1663 tree species to ask how locally dominant and rare species differ in their trait values, and how these differences are driven by climatic gradients in temperature and water availability in forest biomes across the globe. We find three consistent trait differences between locally dominant and rare species across all biomes; dominant species are taller, have softer wood and higher loading on the multivariate stem strategy axis (related to narrow tracheids and thick bark). The difference between traits of dominant and rare species is more strongly driven by temperature compared to water availability, as temperature might affect a larger number of traits. Therefore, climate change driven global temperature rise may have a strong effect on trait differences between dominant and rare tree species and may lead to changes in species abundances and therefore strong community reassembly.