Why does the unimodal species richness–productivity relationship not apply to woody species: a lack of clonality or a legacy of tropical evolutionary history?

Aim  To study how differences in species richness patterns of woody and herbaceous plants may be influenced by ecological and evolutionary factors. Unimodal species richness–productivity relationships (SRPRs) have been of interest to ecologists since they were first described three decades ago for British herbaceous vegetation by J. P. Grime. The decrease in richness at high productivity may be due to competitive exclusion of subordinate species, or diverse factors related to evolution and dispersal. Unimodal SRPRs are most often reported for plants, but there are exceptions. For example, unimodal SRPRs are common in the temperate zone but not in the tropics. Similarly, woody species and forest communities in the Northern Hemisphere do not tend to show unimodal SRPRs. Location  Global. Methods  We used data from the literature to test whether a unimodal SRPR applies to woody species and forest communities on a global scale. We explored whether the shape of SRPRs may be related to the lack of clonality in woody species (which may prevent their being competitively superior), or the legacy of evolutionary history (most temperate woody species originate from tropical lineages, and due to niche conservatism they may still demonstrate ‘tropical patterns’). We used case studies that reported the names of the dominant or most abundant species for productive sites. Results  Woody species were indeed less clonal than herbaceous species. Both clonality and the temperate evolutionary background of dominating species were associated with unimodality in SRPRs, with woodiness modifying the clonality effect. Main conclusions  The unimodal SRPR has been common in the ecological literature because most such studies originate from temperate herbaceous communities with many clonal species. Consequently, both evolutionary and ecological factors may influence species richness patterns.

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