Data from: Land-use intensification effects on functional properties in tropical plant communities

There is consensus that plant diversity and ecosystem processes are
negatively affected by land-use intensification (LUI), but, at the same
time, there is empirical evidence that a large heterogeneity can be found
in the responses. This heterogeneity is especially poorly understood in
tropical ecosystems. We evaluated changes in community functional
properties across five common land-use types in the wet tropics with
different land-use intensity: mature forest, logged forest, secondary
forest, agricultural land, and pastureland, located in the lowlands of
Bolivia. For the dominant plant species, we measured 12 functional
response traits related to their life history, acquisition and
conservation of resources, plant domestication, and breeding. We used
three single-trait metrics to describe community functional properties:
community abundance-weighted mean (CWM) traits values, coefficient of
variation, and kurtosis of distribution. The CWM of all 12 traits clearly
responded to LUI. Overall, we found that an increase in LUI resulted in
communities dominated by plants with acquisitive leaf trait values.
However, contrary to our expectations, secondary forests had more
conservative trait values (i.e., lower specific leaf area) than mature and
logged forest, probably because they were dominated by palm species.
Functional variation peaked at intermediate land-use intensity (high
coefficient of variation and low kurtosis), which included secondary
forest but, unexpectedly, also agricultural land, which is an intensely
managed system. The high functional variation of these systems is due to a
combination of how response traits (and species) are filtered out by
biophysical filters and how management practices introduced a range of
exotic species and their trait values into the local species pool. Our
results showed that, at local scales and depending on prevailing
environmental and management practices, LUI does not necessarily result in
communities with more acquisitive trait values or with less functional
variation. Instead of the widely expected negative impacts of LUI on plant
diversity, we found varying responses of functional variation, with
possible repercussions on many ecosystem services. These findings provide
a background for actively mitigating negative effects of LUI while meeting
the needs of local communities that rely mainly on provisioning ecosystem
services for their livelihoods.