Root elemental composition in Chinese forests: implications for biogeochemical niche differentiation

1. Trait-based community analysis provides a new approach to integrate functional ecology with community ecology. However, our understanding of the linkages between root chemical traits and community chemical diversity and assembly is still in its infancy.
2. Environmental filtering and niche differentiation are two opposite driving forces of community assembly based on deterministic niche processes. We hypothesize that environmental filtering is a strong driver of root chemical assembly at a large spatial scale, whereas biogeochemical niche differentiation drives root chemical traits divergence among co-occurring species at site scale.
3. We analyzed the concentrations of 15 elements in the fine roots of 281 species across five forest types of China. Discriminant analysis was used to measure the degree of similarity of root chemical traits at the community level and biogeochemical niche differentiation at the species level.
4. Root chemical traits at the community level showed a sys...