Conclusion
Trees may find themselves back in a distantly related neighbourhood if
niches were conserved in the past and at present (i) environments change
rapidly, requiring colonization of sites still occupied by distantly
related trees, or (ii) environments remain constant and individuals
leave their ancestral niche and converge with niches of distantly
related species. Such coexistence of trees with distant relatives
appears to impede and severely re-organize carbon and nitrogen
recycling. Processes involved operate through above- and belowground
mechanisms, appear to involve abiotic drivers of decomposition in some
cases, and biotic drivers in many others, notably fungi for aboveground
effects and Acari and Collembola for belowground effects of phylogenetic
isolation. Such mechanisms driven by local phylogenetic isolation might
ultimately
contribute
to feedbacks between niche-evolution and ecosystem functioning
(Srivastava et al . 2012; Prinzing et al . 2017): they might
prevent trees from tracking and conserving niches under environmental
change.