Latitudinal variation in morphological traits of the genus Pinus and its relation to environmental and phylogenetic signals

Background: Broad-scale analysis of interspecific trait variation is a fundamental approach in comparative ecology to investigate general species-environment relationships, but inferences from environmental and phylogenetic signals are still controversially discussed. Aims: The aim of this study was to globally analyse the genus Pinus and the interspecific variation of morphological traits with latitude as a surrogate of broad-scale environmental changes, and to compare latitudinal trait correlations with biogeographic, environmental and phylogenetic signals in trait variation. Methods: Based on native range maps of 103 Pinus species, the latitudinal correlations of nine morphological traits, including needle characters, cone length and tree height were calculated. Principal component analysis was used to explore trait covariation. Variation partitioning was applied to disentangle environmental and phylogenetic signals in trait variation. Results: Strong latitudinal correlations were detected for traits, such as needle length: width ratio or needle longevity, with similar trends for different taxonomic species subsets and geographic regions. Strong latitudinal correlations were related to a decrease in the pure phylogenetic signal and to an increase in the phylogenetically structured environmental variation (PSEV), whereas the pure environmental signal was almost negligible. Conclusions: Besides a ranking of traits that differ in environmental and phylogenetic signals, our results showed a general relationship between increasing latitudinal trait correlation and an increase in PSEV, which indicates phylogenetic niche conservatism. Thus, for the investigated morphological traits of the genus Pinus both environmental and phylogenetic signals are directly linked by PSEV to broad-scale spatial patterns in trait variation.