Figure Legends
Figure 1 . Conceptual framework to illustrate hypotheses of this
study. (a) and (b) respectively show spatial associations of repulsion
and attraction between two species at coarse spatial scale. (c) and (d)
show the predicted relationships between pairwise spatial associations
and absolute trait distance under different processes of community
assembly: (c) limiting similarity, if absolute trait distance has
positive effects on pairwise spatial associations; and (d) environmental
filtering or hierarchical competition, if absolute trait distance has
negative effects on pairwise spatial associations. In the case of (d),
if absolute trait distance has stronger effects on pairwise spatial
association than hierarchical trait distance, we infer that
environmental filtering mainly drives the co-occurrence pattern (e); if
the hierarchical trait distance has stronger effects on pairwise spatial
associations than absolute trait distance, the effect of hierarchical
competition is thought to drive the co-occurrence pattern (f).
Abbreviation: SA= pairwise spatial associations.
Figure 2 . Effects of absolute trait distances on the pairwise
spatial associations in equation 2 that only includes the absolute trait
distances as explanatory predictors. The left panels show coefficients
of each variable of absolute trait distances with variance. The right
panels present percentages of the 80 focal species whose spatial
associations are positively (brown circles), negatively (blue circles)
and non-significantly (gray circles) correlated with each variable of
absolute trait distances. The panels from Row 1-6 represent
the
results
for
spatial associations assessed by bivariate pair-correlation function
(gij (r ), pcf) across different spatial
scales at r = 5 m, 30 m and 50 m and bivariate distribution
function of nearest neighbor (Dij (r )) atr = 5 m, 30 m and 50 m, respectively. Abbreviation: LA=leaf area,
SLA=specific leaf area, LDMC=leaf dry matter content, WD=wood density
and Hmax=maximum height, abdist means absolute trait
distance.
Figure 3. Comparison between the strengths of hierarchical and
absolute trait distances on spatial associations for the 80 foal
species. The strengths of hierarchical and absolute trait distances were
respectively given by the absolute values of the coefficients of the
variables of hierarchical and absolute trait distances of different
functional traits in the full model of equation 2. Each circle
represents one focal species. Brown, blue and gray circles respectively
represent that hierarchical trait distances had stronger, weaker and
non-significantly different effects on the pairwise spatial associations
relative to their corresponding absolute trait distances. The results
presented here are for spatial associations assessed by bivariate
pair-correlation function (gij (r ), pcf) atr =50 m.
Figure 4. The relationships between the abundance of focal
species and the magnitude that the effects of trait hierarchy outcompete
trait dissimilarity (MHD). MHD was given by the differences in the
coefficients (absolute values) of hierarchical trait distances of each
trait and their corresponding coefficients (absolute values) of absolute
trait distances in the full model of equation 2. Each circle represents
one focal species. Brown, blue and gray circles respectively represent
that hierarchical trait distances of had stronger, weaker and
non-significantly different effects on the spatial associations relative
to their corresponding absolute trait distances. The results presented
here are for spatial associations assessed by bivariate pair-correlation
function (gij (r ), pcf) at r =50 m.
Figure 1