Ecological similarity is related to phylogenetic distance between species in a cross-niche field transplant experiment.

Abstract

To determine whether phylogenetic relatedness predicts ecological niche differences and community assembly in the field, we transplanted 16 focal plant species into field niches of species of increasing phylogenetic relatedness, manipulated the presence of plant neighbors, and measured environmental covariates. We found that plant survivorship declined with increasing phylogenetic distance in the presence of neighbors, but with neighbor removal, reached a low point in field niches occupied by species diverged at 63My, the maximum age of confamilials in our study, and then increased again in the sites of distant relatives. Plant biomass was similarly nonlinear, and niche differences increased with neighbor removal. Competitive response showed a linear decline with relatedness. We compared our experimental results to natural community composition, finding that conspecifics and distant relatives were more likely to co-occur at smaller spatial scales, as predicted by our measures of performance.