Relationship Between Functional Traits, Functional Types, and Habitat in Boreonemoral Bryophytes

Abstract The aim of the present study was to determine a relationship between physiological traits and functional types of bryophytes from five boreonemoral habitats with a particular emphasis on discriminative ability of these traits. Sampling of 25 species was performed four times during one season. Water content, chlorophyll a fluorescence and photosynthetic pigment concentration were measured in field and water-equilibrated samples. Principal component analysis indicated the existence of an inverse relationship between concentration of pigments and water content. Linear discriminant analysis showed that relatively high mean predicted posterior probabilities of correct classification of functional types by physiological traits were found for water conducting system, followed by substrate and habitat, but it was highly variable and type-specific for life form and relatively less variable for life strategy. Field water content had the highest average discriminative importance among physiological traits, followed by chlorophyll fluorescence indices field Fv/Fm, equilibrated PI, equilibrated RC/ABS, and field RC/ABS. Photosynthetic pigment concentrations had relatively less average importance for classification of functional types.