Journal
JOURNAL OF TROPICAL ECOLOGY
Volume 24, Issue -, Pages 663-674Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S0266467408005506
Keywords
Africa; beta diversity; community composition; habitat association; Non-Symmetric Correspondence Analysis; soil; tree communities; trend surface analysis
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Understanding how species assemblages are structured fit relation to environmental variation is a central issue in community ecology. However. factors that create regional variation in relative species abundances have been little studied due to the rarity of large-scale datasets. Here, we investigated it large dataset (30 180 0.5-ha plots spread over 1 600 000 ha) gathered from forest planning inventories in the semi-deciduous forest of the South western Central African Republic. We used Correspondence Analysis and Non-Symmetric Correspondence Analysis on Instrumental Variables to analyse variation in the abundance of 73 common tree species in relation to soil type, rainfall and proximity to villages. Together, environmental variables explained 10.3% of multi-species floristic variation among plots. and the regional spatial structure almost disappeared when the effects of these variables were removed. A Trend Surface Analysis using a third order polynomial function of the geographical coordinates of the plots explained 14.5% of the floristic variation and more than 75% of this variation was explained by environmental variables. Sandy soil was the Most influential Factor affecting floristic composition. Residual spatial variation not explained by the environmental variables probably reflects the natural and anthropogenic history of the vegetation.
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