Relationships between spatial pattern and absolute trait
distances
By fitting the linear mixed regression model (2) using absolute trait
distances of individual traits exclusively, we found statistical support
for negative effects of the absolute trait distances measured by
individual traits on pairwise spatial associations assessed by the two
summary statistics
(gij (r )
and Dij (r )) across different spatial
scales (Fig. 2). The coefficients of absolute trait distances of
individual traits of LA, WD and Hmax were consistently
negative for both summary statistics across spatial scales. SLA (atr =5 m) and WDMC showed slightly negative effects on pairwise
spatial associations, while LDMC did not show significant effects. As
for absolute trait distances based on multiple traits, negative effects
on spatial associations were also observed consistently across summary
statistics and spatial scales (Fig. S1).
For the 80 focal species, we found that the effects of absolute trait
distances were non-significant for most of the focal species on their
pairwise spatial associations as the 95% confidence intervals of
coefficients intercepted 0 (Fig. 2). While for the remaining focal
species, in general, more focal species’ spatial associations were
negatively correlated to absolute trait distances than those were
positively correlated (Fig. 2).