Format: ORAL

Bez Selene1, Hans Verbeeck2, Marijn Bauters2, Sonia Palacios3, Sebastin Tello4, Homeier Jrgen5,6

1Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Facultad de Ciencias, Quito, Ecuador 2Department of Environment, CAVElab - Computational and Applied Vegetation Ecology, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium 3Universidad Agraria La Molina, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales, Lima, Perú 4Missouri Botanical Garden, MO, USA 5HAWK Göttingen, Faculty of Resource Management, Göttingen, Germany 6Georg August University Göttingen, Plant Ecology and Ecosystems Research, Göttingen, Germany

Trait composition of tropical forests are closely related to climatic factors. Andean forests are extremely diverse and occur over large areas with wide climatic variation. There is a general understanding of how trait composition of Andean forests varies across climatic gradients. However, detailed studies relating key plant functional traits -that could provide information about forest sensitivity to changing climatic conditions- are inexistent thus far. In this study, we used 86 permanent forest plots established in Ecuador, Per and Bolivia. For each plot, we calculated community-weighted means (CWM) for the following traits: Leaf nitrogen, Specific Leaf Area (SLA) and Specific stem density (SSD). We used linear models to predict how trait varied in response to climatic variables obtained from extrapolated databases (i.e., mean annual temperature (MAT), mean annual precipitation (MAP), and vapor pressure deficit (VPD). Our results indicated that Andean forests trait expression is tightly linked to MAT and VPD, but the role of MAP was unclear. These findings confirm the critical role of climate on Andean forests functional configuration.