DOI: 10.5061/dryad.f77p7
title: Data from: Logging increases the functional and phylogenetic dispersion of understorey plant communities in tropical lowland rainforest

description: 1. Logging is a major driver of tropical forest degradation, with severe
 impacts on plant richness and composition. Rarely have these effects been
 considered in terms of their impact on the functional and phylogenetic
 diversity of understorey plant communities, despite the direct relevance
 to community reassembly trajectories. Here, we test the effects of logging
 on functional traits and evolutionary relatedness, over and above effects
 that can be explained by changes in species richness alone. We
 hypothesised that strong environmental filtering will result in more
 clustered (under-dispersed) functional and phylogenetic structures within
 communities as logging intensity increases. 2. We surveyed understorey
 plant communities at 180 locations across a logging intensity gradient
 from primary to repeatedly-logged tropical lowland rainforest in Sabah,
 Malaysia. For the 691 recorded plant taxa, we generated a phylogeny to
 assess plot-level phylogenetic relatedness. We quantified 10 plant traits
 known to respond to disturbance (dispersal mode, fruit type, life-history
 mode, pollination syndrome, reproduction strategy and seed number) and
 affect ecosystem functioning (plant growth form, plant height, specific
 leaf area and wood density), and tested the influence of logging on
 functional and phylogenetic structure. 3. We found no significant effect
 of local- or landscape-scale forest canopy loss, or configuration of
 logging roads on species richness. By contrast, both the trait dispersion
 index (FDis) and net relatedness index (NRI) for phylogenetic dispersion
 showed strong gradients from clustered towards more randomly-assembled
 communities at higher logging intensity, independent of variation in
 species richness. All functional traits showed significant phylogenetic
 signals, indicating strong concordance between functional and phylogenetic
 dispersion. 4. Synthesis. We found a strong logging signal in the
 functional and phylogenetic structure of understorey plant communities,
 over and above species richness, but this effect was opposite to that
 predicted. Logging increased, rather than decreased, functional and
 phylogenetic dispersion in understorey plant communities. This effect was
 particularly pronounced for functional response traits, which directly
 link disturbance with plant community reassembly. Our study provides novel
 insight into the way logging affects understorey plant communities in
 tropical rainforest and highlights the importance of trait-based
 approaches to improve our understanding of the broad range of
 logging-associated impacts.
description: Plot characteristics for
 understorey vegetation plots in BorneoThis csv file contains
 the full database of characteristics for each of 180 vegetation plots
 including logging metrics, environmental variables as well as taxonomic,
 functional and phylogenetic diversity indices for understorey plants in
 Borneo.PlotData.csvSpecies trait data for understorey plant species in BorneoThis csv file contains the complete list of species (691) sampled across 180 vegetation plots (2 x 2m) located at the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems (SAFE) project in Sabah, Malaysia, including their allocation to a range of plant functional traits as well as a distinction between native or exotic species origin.SpeciesTraitData.csvMatrix of biomass values for 691 species in 180 understorey vegetation plots in BorneoThis csv file contains a matrix of biomass values for 691 plant taxa sampled across 180 vegetation plots (2 x 2m) located at the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems (SAFE) project in Sabah, Malaysia.PlotSpeciesData.csv