Across tropical and subtropical forests and savannas, variation in temperature, precipitation, and edaphic preferences is related to functional characteristics turnover across space. Here we use a unique dataset of 133 woody community sites (127 ha sample and 1351 species included) covering six forest and savanna vegetation types, to reexamine structural and functional patterns and their environmental drivers. Furthermore, we evaluated whether vegetation types (identified by floristic and environmental characteristics) consistently exhibited structural and functional distinctions. We also assessed the importance of vegetation type identity by quantifying the additional contribution of vegetation type in explaining vegetation patterns when compared to environmental models that include temperature, climate, soil and fire. Our variables included fundamental structural characteristics such as number of trees, basal area and average diameter, alongside functional attributes such as aboveground carbon stock, wood density and representativity of multi-stemmed trees. We also include the innovative approach to representativeness of species with compound leaves, which is a proxy for ecological patterns. We found that vegetation types have consistent differentiation for most structural and functional variables, so that vegetation types exist as distinct units beyond floristic differentiation. In addition, environmental variables play an important role in vegetation patterns, but associated with differences between vegetation types for most variables. Overall, vegetation types attributes serve as important drivers of most vegetation variables, contributing up to 30% to the explanation of variable patterns. Our work is the first to explore structural and functional variations among Brazilian tropical and subtropical vegetation types in a broad scale, reviewing ecological patterns previously defined by specific work or carried out using other approaches. Furthermore, our work contributing to the ecological patterns of Brazilian vegetation, in addition to producing reference values that can be used in conservation projects.

中文翻译：

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巴西热带和亚热带森林和稀树草原的功能和结构属性

在热带和亚热带森林和稀树草原上，温度、降水和土壤偏好的变化与跨空间的功能特征周转有关。在这里，我们使用涵盖六种森林和稀树草原植被类型的 133 个木本群落地点（包括 127 公顷样本和 1351 个物种）的独特数据集，重新审视结构和功能模式及其环境驱动因素。此外，我们评估了植被类型（由植物区系和环境特征确定）是否始终表现出结构和功能差异。与包括温度、气候、土壤和火灾在内的环境模型相比，我们还通过量化植被类型在解释植被模式方面的额外贡献，评估了植被类型特性的重要性。我们的变量包括树木数量、断面积和平均直径等基本结构特征，以及地上碳储量、木材密度和多茎树木代表性等功能属性。我们还采用了具有复合叶的物种代表性的创新方法，这是生态模式的代表。我们发现植被类型对于大多数结构和功能变量具有一致的分化，因此植被类型作为区系分化之外的不同单位存在。此外，环境变量在植被格局中发挥着重要作用，但大多数变量与植被类型之间的差异相关。总体而言，植被类型属性是大多数植被变量的重要驱动因素，对变量模式的解释贡献高达 30%。我们的工作是第一个在广泛范围内探索巴西热带和亚热带植被类型之间的结构和功能变化的工作，回顾了先前由特定工作定义或使用其他方法进行的生态模式。此外，我们的工作除了提供可用于保护项目的参考值外，还为巴西植被的生态模式做出了贡献。