Functional diversity and community functioning: test in a cerrado community

• Grant number: 09/03469-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2010
• End date: February 28, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Ecosystems Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Marco Antônio Portugal Luttembarck Batalha
• Grantee: Juliana Ribeirão de Freitas
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Biological diversity may affect community functioning by altering resource use complementarity. Communities with high functional diversity values are expected to operate better. Measures such as species richness, which does not include functional differences among species, tend to predict weakly community functioning. The "FD" is a continuous measure of functional diversity that estimates resource use complementarity based on species traits. The higher the differences among species trait values, the higher the complementarity and the functional diversity. Litter decomposition is an important process in community functioning, because it is related to soil nutrients available for plants and carbon release to the atmosphere. The aim of this project is to test, in a woodland cerrado, whether there is a relationship between functional diversity of woody species and community functioning, using as a surrogate for it litter decomposition rate. We expect that there is a positive relationship between functional diversity and decomposition rate, even when taking into account differences in soil features.