Data from: Does environmental heterogeneity drive functional trait variation? A test in montane and alpine meadows

While community-weighted means of plant traits have been linked to mean
environmental conditions at large scales, the drivers of trait variation
within communities are not well understood. Local environmental
heterogeneity (such as microclimate variability), in addition to mean
environmental conditions, may decrease the strength of environmental
filtering and explain why communities support different amounts of trait
variation. Here, we assess two hypotheses: first, that more heterogeneous
local environments and second, that less extreme environments, should
support a broader range of plant strategies and thus higher trait
variation. We quantified drivers of trait variation across a range of
environmental conditions and spatial scales ranging from sub-meter to tens
of kilometers in montane and alpine plant communities. We found that,
within communities, both environmental heterogeneity and environmental
means are drivers of trait variation. However, the importance of each
environmental factor varied depending on the trait. Our results indicate
that larger-scale trait-climate linkages that hold across communities also
apply at small spatial scales, suggesting that microclimate variation
within communities is a key driver of community functional diversity.
Microclimatic variation provides a potential mechanism for helping to
maintaining diversity in local communities and also suggests that
small-scale environmental heterogeneity should be measured as a better
predictor of functional diversity.