Role of environmental filtering and functional traits for species coexistence in a harsh tropical montane ecosystem

Abstract Environmental filtering and niche differentiation are often invoked to explain species coexistence at local scales. The ironstone campo rupestre of Brazil provides a biodiverse natural experiment in which edaphic gradients represent filters test the hypothesis that plant community functional composition, despite converging on extreme stress tolerance, exhibits co-structure with environmental parameters. At Serra do Rola-Moça State Park, soil physico-chemical parameters were characterized alongside community-weighted mean traits Grime’s competitor, stress-tolerator ruderal strategies for each sampling site. In general, exhibited high degree tolerance (between 72.6% 100%), while ruderalism was 0% all species. Soil nutrients related metabolism (e.g. P, Ca, Mg) associated stress-tolerant strategy involved leaf economics size spectra. Despite major filter selecting fine-scale microhabitat variability represented by fertility (i.e. water retention capacity clay content) subtle variation ecological rupestre.