Differential Responses of Taxonomic, Structural, and Functional Diversity to Local-Scale Environmental Variation in Afromontane Forests in South Africa

Abstract

Exploring taxonomic, functional, and structural diversity can provide additional insights into our understanding of diversity responses to environment. Using altitude, slope, and relative radiation index as well as floristic and functional data from a South Africa Afromontane forest, we examined how taxonomic, structural, and functional diversity varied with local environmental variation. Taxonomic and structural diversity were quantified through species richness- and diameter class-based Shannon index and evenness, respectively. Skewness and coefficient of variation of diameter distribution were additionally computed for structural diversity. As for functional diversity, we used functional richness, evenness, divergence, and dispersion based on functional traits. Data were analyzed using multimodel inference and subset regression. We found little evidence of environmental effects on local-scale taxonomic diversity patterns. In contrast, structural and functional diversity metrics varied significantly alo...