CSR ecological strategies, functional traits and trade-offs of woody species in Amazon sandplain forest

Abstract

The ecological performance of different plant species in a given ecosystem is associated with their functional traits. Plants may adopt ecological strategies to optimize resources’ acquisition and use in resource-poor environments, such as sandplain (restinga) forests. The CSR theory points out the three main types of ecological strategies observed in plants: competitors ("C"); tolerant to stresses ("S") and ruderals ("R"). The aim of the current study is to evaluate: i) the CSR strategies used by dominant species in restinga environments; ii) the functional traits mostly associated with plants’ ecological strategies and trade-offs between traits; iii) whether the functional traits or percentage of CSR strategies can explain plant species importance value. We evaluated the relative proportions of CSR strategies using the StrateFy tool and if the set of functional traits (leaf and wood) was associated with species’ importance value. According to the CSR model, the investigated species were highly tolerant to stress. Sandplain forest species showed different sets of traits and trade-offs influencing their performance. The investigated species showed variation in their strategies, such as the combination of traits capable of assuring high environmental resistance, traits associated with structural defenses and traits capable of assuring higher water storage capacity. The importance value of species in sandplain were related to the set of leaf and wood traits. Results showed that despite the convergency in CSR strategies, the investigated plants species presented a diversity of traits combination and trade-offs capable of enabling stress tolerance in sandplain forests.