Journal
BIOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 6, Issue 1, Pages 120-123Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0669
Keywords
ecological niche; mixed models; information theory; intraspecific variability
Categories
Funding
- ANR- Diversitalp [ANR- 07- BDIV- 014]
- EU [066 866GOCE]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Habitat suitability models, which relate species occurrences to environmental variables, are assumed to predict suitable conditions for a given species. If these models are reliable, they should relate to change in plant growth and function. In this paper, we ask the question whether habitat suitability models are able to predict variation in plant functional traits, often assumed to be a good surrogate for a species' overall health and vigour. Using a thorough sampling design, we show a tight link between variation in plant functional traits and habitat suitability for some species, but not for others. Our contrasting results pave the way towards a better understanding of how species cope with varying habitat conditions and demonstrate that habitat suitability models can provide meaningful descriptions of the functional niche in some cases, but not in others.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available