Leaf economics in a three‐dimensional environment: Testing leaf trait responses in vascular epiphytes to land use, climate, and tree zone

1. The study of functional traits offers predictive power for community ecology. Particularly in cases where individual species are difficult to study, known properties of trait spectra, such as the leaf economics spectrum (LES), and trait-environment relationships can provide crucial generalizable information that can contribute to forecasts of distributional shifts in response to the abiotic effects of climate and land use changes. 2. Vascular epiphytes have been proposed as indicators of environmental change, but we know little about the ecology of most species. Key functional trait assumptions are based on terrestrial plants; testing these in epiphytes verifies their universality and will inform applying functional traits in predicting epiphyte responses to climate and land use change. 3. In this study, we use functional traits from 37 vascular epiphyte species from forests and shade coffee farms at two sites in northern Nicaragua. We compare correlations among traits and intr...1. 功能性状（functional traits）研究为群落生态学提供了预测能力。在单个物种难以开展研究的情形下，已知的性状谱属性——例如叶片经济谱（leaf economics spectrum, LES）——以及性状-环境关系，可提供关键的可推广性信息，助力预测由气候与土地利用变化的非生物效应所引发的物种分布变迁。 2. 维管附生植物（vascular epiphytes）曾被提议作为环境变化的指示物，但目前学界对多数此类物种的生态学特征仍知之甚少。核心功能性状假设多基于陆生植物；在附生植物中验证这些假设，既可确认其普适性，也可为应用功能性状预测附生植物对气候与土地利用变化的响应提供科学依据。 3. 本研究采集了尼加拉瓜北部两个样地内森林与遮阴咖啡农场中37种维管附生植物的功能性状数据，并对性状间的相关性及intra……