@article {34454,
	title = {Effects of topography on structuring species assemblages in a subtropical forest},
	journal = {Journal of Plant EcologyJournal of Plant Ecology},
	volume = {10},
	number = {3},
	year = {2017},
	note = {10.1093/jpe/rtw047},
	pages = {440-449},
	abstract = {AimsTopography has long been recognized as an important factor in shaping species distributions. Many studies revealed that species may show species{\textendash}habitat associations. However, few studies investigate how species assemblages are associated with local habitats, and it still remains unclear how the community{\textendash}habitat associations vary with species abundance class and life stage. In this study, we analyzed the community{\textendash}habitat associations in a subtropical montane forest.MethodsThe fully mapped 25-ha (500{\texttimes}500 m) forest plot is located in Badagongshan Nature Reserve in Hunan Province, Central China. It was divided into 625 (20{\texttimes}20 m) quadrats. Habitat types were classified by multivariate regression tree analyses that cluster areas with similar species composition according to the topographic characteristics. Indicator species analysis was used to identify the most important species for structuring species assemblages. We also compared the community{\textendash}habitat associations for two levels of species abundances (i.e. abundant and rare) and three different life stages (i.e. saplings, juveniles and adults), while accounting for sample size effects.Important FindingsThe Badagongshan plot was divided into five distinct habitat types, which explained 34.7\% of the variance in tree species composition. Even with sample size taken into account, community{\textendash}habitat associations for rare species were much weaker than those for abundant species. Also when accounting for sample size, very small differences were found in the variance explained by topography for the three life stages. Indicator species of habitat types were mainly abundant species, and nearly all adult stage indicator species were also indicators in juvenile and sapling stages. Our study manifested that topographical habitat filtering was important in shaping overall local species compositions. However, habitat filtering was not important in shaping rare species{\textquoteright} distributions in this forest. The community{\textendash}habitat association patterns in this forest were mainly shaped by abundant species. In addition, during the transitions from saplings to juveniles, and from juveniles to adults, the relative importance of habitat filtering was very weak.},
	isbn = {1752-9921},
	author = {Wang, Qinggang and Punchi-Manage, Ruwan and Lu, Zhijun and Franklin, Scott B. and Wang, Zhiheng and Li, Yaoqi and Chi, Xiulian and Bao, Dachuan and Guo, Yili and Lu, Junmeng and Xu, Yaozhan and Qiao, Xiujuan and Jiang, Mingxi}
}
