The roles of environmental filtering and competitive exclusion in the plant community assembly at Mt. Huangshan are forest-type-dependent

At Mount Huangshan, environmental filtering dominates plant community assembly in evergreen broadleaf and mixed needleleaf-broadleaf forests, while competitive exclusion plays a stronger role in deciduous broadleaf forests. Researchers analyzed 176 species from these forest types, measuring six functional traits and constructing molecular phylogenies to assess trait-phylogenetic distances. They found that certain traits were more phylogenetically convergent than expected, with functional distances being particularly important for tree and shrub layers. Spatial drivers explained community structure better than environmental ones, suggesting that management strategies should focus on species coexistence mechanisms to protect biodiversity and predict future responses to environmental changes.

Lv, T., Ding, H., Wang, N., Xie, L., Chen, S., Wang, D., & Fang, Y. (2024). The roles of environmental filtering and competitive exclusion in the plant community assembly at Mt. Huangshan are forest-type-dependent. Global Ecology and Conservation, 51, e02906. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2024.e02906