Co-occurrence of tree species at fine spatial scale in a woodland cerrado,southeastern Brazil |
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Authors: | Igor Aurélio Silva Marco Antonio Batalha |
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Institution: | 1.Department of Botany,Federal University of S?o Carlos,S?o Carlos,Brazil |
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Abstract: | Species co-occurrence at fine spatial scales is expected to be nonrandom in relation to species phylogenetic relatedness and
functional similarity. On the one hand, closely related species that occur together and experience similar environmental conditions
are likely to share phenotypic traits due to the process of environmental filtering. On the other hand, species that are too
similar are unlikely to co-occur due to competitive exclusion. We surveyed a woodland cerrado, southeastern Brazil, to test
whether co-occurrence in tree species shows functional or phylogenetic structuring at fine spatial scale. Searching for correlations
between an index of species co-occurrence and both functional trait differences and phylogenetic distances, we provided evidence
for a predominant role of environment filters in determining the co-occurrence of functionally similar tree species in cerrado.
However, we did not find any effect of phylogenetic relatedness on tree species co-occurrence. We suggest that the phylogenetic
relatedness of co-occurring cerrado tree species did not present a pattern, because the species functional traits were randomly
distributed on the phylogeny. Thus, phylogenetic relatedness and functional similarity do not seem to limit the co-occurrence
at fine spatial scale of cerrado tree species. |
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Keywords: | Competitive exclusion Environmental filter Functional trait Phylogenetic relatedness Species co-occurrence |
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