Environment- and trait-mediated scaling of tree occupancy in forests worldwide

Abstract

The relationship between the proportion of sites occupied by a species and the area of a site [occupancy–area relationship (OAR)] offers key information for biodiversity management and has long fascinated ecologists. We quantified the variation in OAR for 3,157 woody species in 17 forest plots worldwide and tested the relative importance of environment and species traits for explaining this variation and evaluated overall model predictive ability.