Changing drivers of species dominance during tropical forest succession

1. Deterministic theories predict that local communities assemble from a regional species pool based on niche differences, thus by plant functional adaptations. We tested whether functional traits can also explain patterns in species dominance among the suite of co-occurring species. 2. We predicted that along a gradient of secondary succession the main driver of species dominance changes from environmental filtering in the relatively harsh (dry and hot) early successional conditions, towards increased competitive interactions and limiting similarity in later successional conditions (when light is limited). 3.We used the Kurtosis (K) (a measure of peakedness) of the functional trait distribution of secondary forest communities in high-diversity tropical rainforest in Chiapas, Mexico. The forests ranged 1 to 25 years in age, and we used 8 functional leaf traits related to a plants’ carbon, water and heat balance. We calculated the functional trait distribution based on species dominance,...