Dominant drivers of plant community assembly vary by soil type and time in reclaimed forests

AbstractInformation on plant community assembly mechanisms is limited on forest reclamation sites after mining in the Canadian boreal forest. We assessed the change in plant community composition after Year 2 and Year 5 on species-rich forest floor mineral mix (FFMM) and species-poor peat mineral mix (PMM) reclamation soils by examining assembly mechanisms, i.e., seed bank, seed rain, biotic dispersal, vegetative expansion, and competition. Initial plant cover and diversity were greater on FFMM due to non-native species originating from the seed bank, which had 5× more seeds in the FFMM. By Year 5, both soil types had approximately 40% cover and 80 species richness due to the addition of wind and biotic-dispersed species and were characterized by a shift towards native species. Native forbs using vegetative reproduction expanded up to 2 m from FFMM into PMM. At Year 5 competition does not seem to have a large role in the structuring of the vegetation community. Overall, multiple factors were involved in structuring plant communities on reclamation sites, but we observed a general convergence between plant communities on different soil types in a relatively short period of time.

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Seed Rain and Seed Bank Reveal that Seed Limitation Strongly Influences Plant Community Assembly in Grasslands

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0103352 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 9 (7) ◽

pp. e103352 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Bryndís Marteinsdóttir

Keyword(s):

Plant Community ◽

Seed Bank ◽

Community Assembly ◽

Seed Rain ◽

Seed Limitation ◽

Plant Community Assembly

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Increasing ground-layer plant taxonomic diversity masks declining phylogenetic diversity along a silvicultural disturbance gradient

Canadian Journal of Forest Research ◽

10.1139/cjfr-2020-0055 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 50 (12) ◽

pp. 1259-1267

Author(s):

Stefan F. Hupperts ◽

Christopher R. Webster ◽

Robert E. Froese ◽

Erik A. Lilleskov ◽

Amy M. Marcarelli ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Plant Community ◽

Plant Communities ◽

Community Assembly ◽

Phylogenetic Diversity ◽

Taxonomic Diversity ◽

Diversity Indices ◽

Site Preparation ◽

Ground Layer ◽

Trait Diversity ◽

Plant Community Assembly

Most plant diversity in temperate deciduous forests is found in the ground layer, but nearly all studies comparing plant community assembly using taxonomic, trait, and phylogenetic diversity indices are limited to woody plants. To examine the relationship between short-term ground-layer plant community assembly and disturbance severity, we leveraged a silvicultural experiment that applied a combination of harvest and site preparation treatments in a northern hardwood forest in Michigan, USA. We predicted that after two growing seasons, plant communities would be less sensitive to harvest treatments when compared with site preparation treatments that disturb the rhizosphere and modify rooting substrate. We also predicted that an increase in taxonomic diversity would accompany a decline in trait diversity and phylogenetic diversity. Instead, plant species composition responded similarly to harvest treatment and site preparation treatment. However, our measure of disturbance severity was positively correlated with both trait diversity and taxonomic diversity but negatively correlated with phylogenetic diversity, indicating that increasingly diverse traits and taxonomies along this disturbance severity gradient were comprised of more phylogenetically simple plant communities. Informed management decisions should therefore consider the underlying value of each diversity measure, as taxonomic diversity alone may not be the best metric for assessing plant community assembly.

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Species-specific adaptations determine how aridity and biotic interactions drive the assembly of dryland plant communities

10.1101/147181 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Miguel Berdugo ◽

Fernando T. Maestre ◽

Sonia Kéfi ◽

Nicolas Gross ◽

Yoann Le Bagousse-Pinguet ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Plant Community ◽

Plant Communities ◽

Species Distribution ◽

Community Assembly ◽

Species Distribution Models ◽

List Type ◽

Relative Importance ◽

Distribution Models ◽

Species Specific ◽

Plant Community Assembly

AbstractDespite being a core ecological question, disentangling individual and interacting effects of plant-plant interactions, abiotic factors and species-specific adaptations as drivers of community assembly is challenging. Studies addressing this issue are growing rapidly, but they generally lack empirical data regarding species interactions and local abundances, or cover a narrow range of environmental conditions.We analysed species distribution models and local spatial patterns to isolate the relative importance of key abiotic (aridity) and biotic (facilitation and competition) drivers of plant community assembly in drylands worldwide. We examined the relative importance of these drivers along aridity gradients and used information derived from the niches of species to understand the role that species-specific adaptations to aridity play in modulating the importance of community assembly drivers.Facilitation, together with aridity, was the major driver of plant community assembly in global drylands. Due to community specialization, the importance of facilitation as an assembly driver decreased with aridity, and became non significant at the border between arid and semiarid climates. Under the most arid conditions, competition affected species abundances in communities dominated by specialist species. Due to community specialization, the importance of aridity in shaping dryland plant communities peaked at moderate aridity levels.Synthesis: We showed that competition is an important driver of community assembly even under harsh environments, and that the effect of facilitation collapses as driver of species relative abundances under high aridity because of the specialization of the species pool to extremely dry conditions. Our findings pave the way to develop more robust species distribution models aiming to predict the consequences of ongoing climate change on community assembly in drylands, the largest biome on Earth.

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Directional changes of species spatial dispersion and realized environmental niches drive plant community assembly during early plant succession

Journal of Plant Ecology ◽

10.1093/jpe/rty038 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 409-418

Author(s):

Werner Ulrich ◽

Markus Klemens Zaplata ◽

Susanne Winter ◽

Anton Fischer

Keyword(s):

Plant Community ◽

Community Assembly ◽

Spatial Dispersion ◽

Plant Succession ◽

Plant Community Assembly

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Plant community assembly in temperate forests along gradients of soil fertility and disturbance

Acta Oecologica ◽

10.1016/j.actao.2012.01.009 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 39 ◽

pp. 101-108 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Tobias Naaf ◽

Monika Wulf

Keyword(s):

Soil Fertility ◽

Plant Community ◽

Community Assembly ◽

Temperate Forests ◽

Plant Community Assembly

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Mountain pastures of Qilian Shan: plant communities, grazing impact and degradation status (Gansu province, NW China)

Hacquetia ◽

10.1515/hacq-2016-0014 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 21-35 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Alina Baranova ◽

Udo Schickhoff ◽

Shunli Wang ◽

Ming Jin

Keyword(s):

Plant Community ◽

Plant Communities ◽

Plant Cover ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Detrended Correspondence Analysis ◽

Gansu Province ◽

Grazing Impact ◽

Vegetation Patterns ◽

Pasture Management ◽

Nw China

Abstract Environmental degradation of pasture areas in the Qilian Mountains (Gansu province, NW China) has increased in recent years. Soil erosion and loss of biodiversity caused by overgrazing is widespread. Changes in plant cover, however, have not been analysed so far. The aim of this paper is to identify plant communities and to detect grazing-induced changes in vegetation patterns. Quantitative and qualitative relevé data were collected for community classification and to analyse gradual changes in vegetation patterns along altitudinal and grazing gradients. Detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) was used to analyse variation in relationships between vegetation, environmental factors and differential grazing pressure. The results of the DCA showed apparent variation in plant communities along the grazing gradient. Two factors - altitude and exposure - had the strongest impact on plant community distribution. Comparing monitoring data for the most recent nine years, a trend of pasture deterioration, plant community successions and shift in dominant species becomes obvious. In order to increase grassland quality, sustainable pasture management strategies should be implemented.

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