Termite species diversity and abundance were linked with Selleck GDC973 aboveground carbon (termite diversity r = 0.890, P ≈ 0.007; termite abundance r = 0.898, P ≈ 0.006) and total carbon (diversity r = 0.789, P ≈ 0.035; abundance r = 0.802, P ≈ 0.030). Discussion The results provide evidence that the use of readily observable plant functional morphologies and vegetation structure is a practical basis for comparative ecological studies of complex

terrestrial environments, both within and between regions. The different strengths of relationships may reflect both complex multi-causality and CFTRinh-172 cost differences in effective sampling effort relative to inherent variability of the parameters assessed. The gradsect approach proved to be efficient in sampling major axes of environmental NVP-BSK805 variability. Many biodiversity surveys either employ unstructured sampling or else randomized or purely systematic (usually grid-based) approaches. While these may satisfy statistical sampling theory, they are inefficient and costly to apply in complex habitats, or depending on the size of the window employed are inconsistent with the spatial scale and patch dimensions of tropical landscapes

(Huising et al. 2008). Where the aim is to detect maximum diversity or richness among species and functional groups, habitat variation is more efficiently sampled through gradient-based, non-random approaches, for which theory and practice are now well established (Gillison and Brewer 1985; Wessels et al. 1998; Jones and PTK6 Eggleton 2000; Gillison 2002; Knollová et al. 2005; Parker et al. 2011). The areas sampled in our study, both in Sumatra and Brazil included definitive areas of several hectares of intermediate disturbance, notably ‘Jungle Rubber’ in Sumatra, and ‘Capoeira’ in Brazil. The questions that arise are whether increases in alpha diversity in these cases should be consistent with the intermediate disturbance hypothesis, and whether the relatively small samples represented by a 40 × 5 m transect would be able to disentangle plant structural traits representative of forest community types from

those occurring in their gap succession. The sampling approach using 40 × 5 m transects showed high peaks of alpha diversity consistent with that hypothesis and with other studies in Indo-Malesia using the same methodology to address ridge lines, soil catenary sequences, riparian strips and forest margins (Gillison and Liswanti 2004; Gillison et al. 2004). This level of detection is frequently beyond the capacity of sampling strategies employing larger plot sizes (e.g. 50 × 10 m and above). The relatively small plot size (40 × 5 m) facilitates intensive recording of taxa and functional types and at the same time is logistically suited to additional sampling along environmental gradients and to reduction in observer fatigue.