Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Ecological Society of America
Résumé : Although niche-based and stochastic processes, including dispersal limitation and demographic stochasticity, can each contribute to community assembly, it is difficult to quantify the relative importance of each process in natural vegetation. Here, we extend Shipley's maxent model (Community Assembly by Trait Selection, CATS) for the prediction of relative abundances to incorporate both trait-based filtering and dispersal limitation from the larger landscape and develop a statistical decomposition of the proportions of the total information content of relative abundances in local communities that are attributable to trait-based filtering, dispersal limitation, and demographic stochasticity. We apply the method to tree communities in a mature, species-rich, tropical forest in French Guiana at 1-, 0.25- and 0.04-ha scales. Trait data consisted of species' means of 17 functional traits measured over both the entire meta-community and separately in each of nine 1-ha plots. Trait means calculated separately for each site always gave better predictions. There was clear evidence of trait-based filtering at all spatial scales. Trait-based filtering was the most important process at the 1-ha scale (34%), whereas demographic stochasticity was the most important at smaller scales (37-53%). Dispersal limitation from the meta-community was less important and approximately constant across scales (similar to 9%), and there was also an unresolved association between site-specific traits and meta-community relative abundances. Our method allows one to quantify the relative importance of local niche-based and meta-community processes and demographic stochasticity during community assembly across spatial and temporal scales.
ISSN: 0012-9658

hal-01032424
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01032424

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : 1. Functional traits are posited to explain interspecific differences in performance, but these relationships are difficult to describe for long-lived organisms such as trees, which exhibit strong ontogenetic changes in demographic rates. Here, we use a size-dependent model of tree growth to test the extent to which of 17 functional traits related to leaf and stem economics, adult stature and seed size predict the ontogenetic trajectory of tree growth.[br/] 2. We used a Bayesian modelling framework to parameterize and contrast three size-dependent diameter growth models using 16 years of census data from 5524 individuals of 50 rain forest tree species: a size-dependent model, a size-dependent model with species-specific parameters and a size-dependent model based on functional traits.[br/] 3. Most species showed clear hump-shaped ontogenetic growth trajectories and, across species, maximum growth rate varied nearly tenfold, from 0.58 to 5.51 mm year(-1). Most species attained their maximum growth at 60% of their maximum size, whereas the magnitude of ontogenetic changes in growth rate varied widely among species.[br/] 4. The Trait-Model provided the best compromise between explained variance and model parsimony and needed considerably fewer parameters than the model with species terms.[br/] 5. Stem economics and adult stature largely explained interspecific differences in growth strategy. Maximum absolute diameter growth rates increased with increasing adult stature and leaf delta(13)C and decreased with increasing wood density. Species with light wood had the greatest potential to modulate their growth, resulting in hump-shaped ontogenetic growth curves. Seed size and leaf economics, generally thought to be of paramount importance for plant performance, had no significant relationships with the growth parameters.[br/] 6. Synthesis. Our modelling approach offers a promising way to link demographic parameters to their functional determinants and hence to predict growth trajectories in species-rich communities with little parameter inflation, bridging the gap between functional ecology and population demography.
ISSN: 0022-0477

hal-01032387
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01032387
DOI : 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2011.01883.x

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Station Biologique
Résumé : International audience
From fish samplings (rotenone: 6 February 2002 & 13 May 2003; boxtraps: January 2008 to July 2009) in amangrove lagoon, the demographic structure, reproductive period and diet of Lophogobius cyprinoides were studied.Individual fish were measured (< 1 mm), weighed (± 0.01 g), and sexed by observing the urogenital papilla, sex-ratios andtotal length (TL)-standard length and length-mass relationships were calculated. Five individuals per size class (2 mm) wereused to study sexual maturity by macroscopic observation of gonad structure with a sexual maturity scale, and diet byqualitative and quantitative examination of digestive tract contents and calculation of the following indices: levels offullness and vacuity; occurrence, number, and point frequencies of various food items, and quality of nutrition. Growth isisometric and sexual dimorphism in favor of males (78 vs. 64 mm), demographic structure (18 ≤ TL ≤ 78 mm) and conditionevolved over time, with a distinct femininization of the population. Sexual inversion appeared from 46 mm onward, andtotal masculinization at 72 mm. Protogynous hermaphrodism is advantageous in a sedentary, subcryptobenthic species thatis reproductively active almost throughout the year. The species has an omnivorous diet specialized in copepods and plants
ISSN: 0007-9723

hal-00746079
https://hal.univ-antilles.fr/hal-00746079

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé :  
absent
Ecology and Management of a Neotropical Rainforest: lessons drawn from Paracou, a long-term experimental research site in French Guiana

ISBN : 2-84299-455-8
hal-01189479
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01189479
PRODINRA : 41476

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : Genetic variation is generally considered a prerequisite for adaptation to new environmental conditions. Thus the discovery of genetically depauperate but geographically widespread species is unexpected. We used 12 paternally inherited chloroplast microsatellites to estimate population genetic variation across the full range of an emblematic circum-Mediterranean conifer, stone pine (Pinus pinea L.). The same chloroplast DNA haplotype is fixed in nearly all of the 34 investigated populations. Such a low level of variation is consistent with a previous report of very low levels of diversity at nuclear loci in this species. Stone pine appears to have passed through a severe and prolonged demographic bottleneck, followed by subsequent natural- and human-mediated dispersal across the Mediterranean Basin. No other abundant and widespread plant species has as little genetic diversity as P. pinea at both chloroplast and nuclear markers. However, the species harbors a nonnegligible amount of variation at adaptive traits. Thus a causal relationship between genetic diversity, as measured by marker loci, and the evolutionary precariousness of a species, cannot be taken for granted
ISSN: 0014-3820

hal-01032062
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01032062
DOI : 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2007.00294.x