Functional patterns of tree communities in natural <i>Araucaria</i> forests and old monoculture conifer plantations

Malysz, Marcelo; Müller, Sandra Cristina; Milesi, Silvia Vendruscolo; Santos, Anita Stival dos; Overbeck, Gerhard Ernst

doi:10.1590/0102-33062019abb0249

Marcelo Malysz ^** Corresponding author: mmalysz@gmail.com

Programa de Pós-Graduação em Botânica, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4491-0538

Sandra Cristina Müller

Departamento de Ecologia, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6316-2897

Silvia Vendruscolo Milesi

Departamento de Ciência Biológicas, Universidade Regional Integrada do Alto Uruguai e das Missões, 99709-910, Erechim, RS, Brazil

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9568-6476

Anita Stival dos Santos

Programa de Pós-Graduação em Botânica, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8366-6040

Gerhard Ernst Overbeck

Programa de Pós-Graduação em Botânica, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

Departamento de Botânica, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8716-5136

* Corresponding author: mmalysz@gmail.com

Figures (2)
Tables (3)

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Figure 1
Boxplots showing the diversity and functional richness of regenerative component (A) and adult component (B) for different forest type (native forest, Araucaria plantation and Pinus plantation). Thick lines in the center of the box indicate the median, the boxes indicate the first and third quartiles, and the whiskers represent the lowest datum within 1.5 IQR of the lower quartile, and the highest datum within 1.5 IQR of the upper quartile. Dots are outliers; Different letters indicated significant differences between forest types.

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Figure 2
RLQ of the regenerative (A-C-E) and adult (B-D-F) components. In the analysis, R comprises environmental variables, L species abundance distribution matrix and Q comprises the functional attributes of the species. A, D - mean position of species in the RLQ plan. B, E - environmental variables. C, F - functional traits. ■ = Native forest; ● = Araucaria plantation; ▲ = Pinus plantation.

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Table 1
Soil features and habitat characteristics of the three studied forest types (native forest, Araucaria plantation, pine plantation). Different letters indicate significant differences (p<0.05). Canopy trees refer to individuals with diameter at breast high ≥5 cm. Mean of canopy openness was measured through hemispheric photographs and analyzed with ‘Gap light analyzer’ program. From Malysz & Overbeck (2018Malysz M, Overbeck GE. 2018. Distinct tree regeneration patterns in Araucaria forest and old monoculture tree plantations. Brazilian Journal of Botany 41: 621-629.).

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Table 2
List of traits considered to each species and to further compare the functional structure of communities according to the three forest types.

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Table 3
Mean values of each community-weighted mean trait (CWM) of native forest and abandoned forest plantations (Pine and Araucaria) for regenerative (R) and adult (A) components. Different letters indicate significant differences between forest types (variables with significant differences among forest types in bold).

Forest type	Clay (%)	pH	P (mg/dm³)	K (mg/dm³)	Soil organic matter (%)	Light availability (%)	Canopy trees (#)
Araucaria plantation	35.6	4.6a	4ab	72.4b	6.4a	19.3	19.3
Natural Forest	39.2	4.4b	4.8a	100.6a	6.4a	18.3	18.0
Pinus plantation	43.6	4.4b	3.5c	74.4b	4.8b	21.1	21.1

Trait (labels)	Measurements	Relation with plant performance *
Leaf area (LA)	Individual area of leaf or leaflets in compound leaves (mm²)	Competitive ability
Specific leaf area (SLA)	Area of a fresh leaf divided by its oven-dry mass (m² kg^-1)	Competitive ability / Potential growth rate
Leaf dry matter content (LDMC)	Oven-dry mass divided by its fresh mass (mg g^-1)	Resource-use strategies
Leaf thickness (LT)	Thickness of a laminar leaf (mm) calculated by 1/SLA*LDMC	Resource-use strategies
Leaf nitrogen content (LNC)	Total amount of N per unit of dry leaf mass (mg g^-1)	Growth and productivity
Leaf phosphorus content (LPC)	Total amount of P per unit of dry leaf mass (mg g^-1)	Growth and productivity
Potential plant height (He)	Maximum height that plant may attain according to the literature information (m)	Competitive ability (competition for light)
Wood density (WD)	Oven-dry mass of a stem section divided by the volume of the same section fresh (g/cm³)	Growth and resistance
Seed mass (SM)	Oven-dry mass of an average seed of a species (g)	Dispersal ability and establishment
Zoochory (Zo)	Main mode of dispersal of the propagule. Categories: zoochory (1), without zoochory (0)	Dispersal ability

Trait	Component	Araucaria Plantation	Natural Forest	Pine Plantation	f	p
LA	R	15.88 a	14.04 a	18.51 a	1.74	0.217
	A	9.93 b	16.11 a	18.08 a	11.57	0.001
SLA	R	13.34 b	16.25 a	13.75 b	8.77	0.004
	A	10.04 b	14.61 a	13.61 a	26.2	<0.001
LDMC	R	398.16 a	384.10 a	401.43 a	3.35	0.069
	A	398.67 a	399.64 a	398.41 a	0.01	0.984
LT	R	0.27 a	0.23 b	0.24 b	7.19	0.008
	A	0.38 a	0.24 b	0.26 b	42.86	<0.001
LNC	R	1.86 b	1.97 ab	2.15 a	7.01	0.009
	A	1.42 b	1.82 a	1.92 a	23.71	<0.001
LPC	R	0.14 b	0.15 a	0.15 a	5.25	0.022
	A	0.12 b	0.14 a	0.15 a	13.21	<0.001
He	R	22.14 a	21.81 a	23.22 a	1.78	0.21
	A	30.92 a	24.45 b	24.17 b	41.17	<0.001
WD	R	0.66 a	0.68 a	0.64 a	2.82	0.098
	A	0.58 b	0.65 a	0.65 a	26.23	<0.001
Sm	R	0.46 a	0.45 a	0.34 a	0.63	0.549
	A	2.70 a	0.79 b	0.54 b	55.89	<0.001
Zo	R	0.91 a	0.83 a	0.87 a	1.72	0.22
	A	0.96 a	0.91 a	0.92 a	2.29	0.144

[1] * Corresponding author: mmalysz@gmail.com

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Functional patterns of tree communities in natural Araucaria forests and old monoculture conifer plantations

ABSTRACT