The neglected importance of floral traits in trait‐based plant community assembly

Understanding the rules of community assembly and species coexistence is one of the oldest and most fundamental aims of ecological research (Götzenberger et al., 2012). To date, numerous potential ecological processes have been identified as drivers of species sorting into communities. Among these, abiotic conditions and biotic interactions, as well as dispersal, are generally agreed to have an important role, beside stochastic events (Cornwell and Ackerly, 2009). Abiotic and biotic processes act as a series of filters, selecting species from a regional species pool into local communities (Zobel, 2016) based on their functional characteristics which make them suitable for the particular habitat (Díaz et al., 1998). Such characteristics, i.e. “functional traits,” are defined as “any morphological, physiological or phenological feature measurable at the individual level, which impacts fitness indirectly via its effects on growth, reproduction and survival” (Violle et al., 2007). Although, by definition, reproduction is one of the three Received: 6 June 2019 | Revised: 14 February 2020 | Accepted: 26 February 2020 DOI: 10.1111/jvs.12877