The proper middle class: assessing the importance of subordinate species on plant community assembly and functional diversity
The local species abundance distribution (SAD) and the associated distributions of species functional traits (TADs) both result from the process of plant community assembly. Community assembly has been extensively studied for dominant and rare plants, while subordinates, the species of intermediate abundance in a community, have received less research attention although this group is comparatively species rich and important for community functioning. Here, we study the functional role of subordinate species (those covering the intermediate 50% of abundance ranks) using a large data set of Palearctic dry and semi‐dry grassland plant communities and data on specific leaf area, seed mass and plant height. Our findings indicate that species rank orders of SADs and TADs tend to be negatively correlated, causing the TAD to have higher evenness than the associated SAD. Subordinate species represented on average less than 15% of total plant abundance and trait space. Functional diversity of subordinates was lower than expected by a null model that assumed an equiprobable random distribution of trait values among plant species. Climate seasonality and elevation appeared to be the most important drivers of subordinate abundance and functional diversity. We conclude that subordinates differ from dominants in trait composition, leading to their partial functional independence from dominants.
Authors
- Franz Essl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8253-2112)
- Juan Antonio Campos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5992-2753)
- Sabina Burrascano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6537-3313)
- Rocco Labadessa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8711-1648)
- Dariia Borovyk (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7140-7201)
- Patryk Czortek (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4909-8032)
- Iwona Dembicz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6162-1519)
- Remigiusz Pielech (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8879-3305)
- Radosław Puchałka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4764-0705)
- Alla Aleksanyan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4073-1812)
- Francesca Napoleone (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3807-7180)
- Thomas J. Matthews (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7624-244X)
- Denys Vynokurov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7003-6680)
- Werner Ulrich (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8715-6619)
- Marta Czarniecka‐Wiera (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3294-5853)
- Olha Chusova (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8081-9918)
- Monika Janišová (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6445-0823)
- Idoia Biurrun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1454-0433)
Institutions
- Universidade dos Açores (PT)
- Jagiellonian University (PL)
- University of Vienna (AT)
- University of the Basque Country (ES)
- Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK)
- Masaryk University (CZ)
- Luther University (KR)
- German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (DE)
- Nicolaus Copernicus University (PL)
- Institute of Botany of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK)
- Institute of Chemical Physics NAS RA (AM)
- Institute of Plant Biology (HU)
- M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany (UA)
- Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research (IT)
- University of Warsaw (PL)
- Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (DE)
- Freie Universität Berlin (DE)
- University of Birmingham (GB)
- Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Oikos
- Published
- 2025-09-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/oik.11572
- Primary Topic
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00