scholarly journals The impact of herbivore–plant coevolution on plant community structure

2007 ◽  
Vol 104 (18) ◽  
pp. 7483-7488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith X. Becerra
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Spatial Scale ◽  
Community Assembly ◽  
Host Plants ◽  
Tropical Dry Forest ◽  
Dry Forest ◽  
Plant Community Structure ◽  
Chemical Structures ◽  
Selective Pressures ◽  
The Impact

Coevolutionary theory proposes that the diversity of chemical structures found in plants is, in large part, the result of selection by herbivores. Because herbivores often feed on chemically similar plants, they should impose selective pressures on plants to diverge chemically or bias community assembly toward chemical divergence. Using a coevolved interaction between a group of chrysomelid beetles and their host plants, I tested whether coexisting plants of the Mexican tropical dry forest tend to be chemically more dissimilar than random. Results show that some of the communities are chemically overdispersed and that overdispersion is related to the tightness of the interaction between plants and herbivores and the spatial scale at which communities are measured. As coevolutionary specialization increases and spatial scale decreases, communities tend to be more chemically dissimilar. At fairly local scales and where herbivores have tight, one-to-one interactions with plants, communities have a strong pattern of chemical disparity.

scholarly journals Re‐growing a tropical dry forest: functional plant trait composition and community assembly during succession

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1006-1013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Buzzard ◽  
Catherine M. Hulshof ◽  
Trevor Birt ◽  
Cyrille Violle ◽  
Brian J. Enquist
Keyword(s):  
Community Assembly ◽  
Tropical Dry Forest ◽  
Dry Forest ◽  
Plant Trait

Spatial Scale or Amplitude of Predictors as Determinants of the Relative Importance of Environmental Factors to Plant Community Structure

Biotropica ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo P. Pansonato ◽  
Flávia R. C. Costa ◽  
Carolina V. de Castilho ◽  
Fernanda A. Carvalho ◽  
Gabriela Zuquim
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Spatial Scale ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Community Structure ◽  
Relative Importance

Atmospheric and soil drought risks combined shape community assembly of trees in a tropical dry forest

2020 ◽  
Vol 108 (4) ◽  
pp. 1347-1357
Author(s):  
Moisés Méndez‐Toribio ◽  
Guillermo Ibarra‐Manríquez ◽  
Horacio Paz ◽  
Edwin Lebrija‐Trejos
Keyword(s):  
Community Assembly ◽  
Tropical Dry Forest ◽  
Dry Forest ◽  
Soil Drought

Soils and seasonality influence the richness of gall-inducing insects and their host plants in a tropical dry forest

2022 ◽  
Vol 196 ◽  
pp. 104651
Author(s):  
Juliana Santos-Silva ◽  
Geissy Anny Batista dos Santos ◽  
Jean Carlos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Host Plants ◽  
Tropical Dry Forest ◽  
Dry Forest

scholarly journals Within-species phylogenetic relatedness of a common mycorrhizal fungus affects evenness in plant communities through effects on dominant species

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romain Savary ◽  
Lucas Villard ◽  
Ian R. Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Mycorrhizal Fungi ◽  
Mycorrhizal Fungus ◽  
Species Variation ◽  
Plant Community Structure ◽  
Growth Responses ◽  
Differential Effects ◽  
The Impact

AbstractArbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) have been shown to influence plant community structure and diversity. Studies based on single plant - single AMF isolate experiments show that within AMF species variation leads to large differential growth responses of different plant species. Because of these differential effects, genetic differences among isolates of an AMF species could potentially have strong effects on the structure of plant communities.We tested the hypothesis that within species variation in the AMF R. irregularis significantly affects plant community structure and plant co-existence. We took advantage of a recent genetic characterization of several isolates using double-digest restriction-site associated DNA sequencing (ddRADseq). This allowed us to test not only for the impact of within AMF species variation on plant community structure but also for the role of the R. irregularis phylogeny on plant community metrics. Nine isolates of R. irregularis, belonging to three different genetic groups (Gp1, Gp3 and Gp4), were used as either single inoculum or as mixed diversity inoculum. Plants in a mesocosm representing common species that naturally co-exist in European grasslands were inoculated with the different AMF treatments.We found that within-species differences in R. irregularis did not strongly influence the performance of individual plants or the structure of the overall plant community. However, the evenness of the plant community was affected by the phylogeny of the fungal isolates, where more closely-related AMF isolates were more likely to affect plant community evenness in a similar way compared to more genetically distant isolates.This study underlines the effect of within AMF species variability on plant community structure. While differential effects of the AMF isolates were not strong, a single AMF species had enough functional variability to change the equilibrium of a plant community in a way that is associated with the evolutionary history of the fungus.

scholarly journals Impacto de la agricultura y ganadería sobre el bosque tropical seco de Zirándaro, Guerrero: una evaluación con indicadores ecológicos

2019 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agustín Fuentes-Hernández ◽  
Marleth Mendoza-Orozco ◽  
Leticia Ríos-Casanova ◽  
Alfonso Soler-Aburto ◽  
Daniel Muñoz-Iniestra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Impact ◽  
Tropical Dry Forest ◽  
Organic Matter Content ◽  
Chemical Properties ◽  
Canopy Cover ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Ecological Indicators ◽  
Matter Content ◽  
Dry Forest ◽  
The Impact

<p><strong>Background:</strong> Agriculture and cattle raising modify the structure and functioning of tropical dry forest. The impact of these activities has been evaluated in regions of Jalisco and Yucatán, where slash-and-burn agriculture and extensive cattle raising are the main types of management. However, there are other regions such as Guerrero, where agriculture is combined with cattle raising. Yet, its impact on the forest has not been evaluated so far.</p><p><strong>Question:</strong> What is the impact of agriculture/cattle raising and cattle raising on the tropical dry forest in Zirándaro, Guerrero?</p><p><strong>Study sites and dates:</strong> The study was performed in Zirándaro, Guerrero, in December 2014 and June 2015.</p><p><strong>Methods:</strong> We selected 9 sites with agriculture/cattle raising, cattle raising, and forest to sample vegetation and soil, and to calculate 10 ecological indicators. We also collected 9 soil samples to evaluate their physical and chemical properties.</p><p><strong>Results:</strong> The soil of agriculture/cattle raising and cattle raising had higher bulk density, but lower porosity and organic matter content than the forest soil. The agriculture/cattle raising and cattle raising had low plant species richness and canopy cover. The agriculture/cattle raising had lower vegetation structure and higher proportion of basal gaps than cattle raising. These differences suggest that agriculture/cattle raising had a higher impact on forest than cattle raising. Yet, we did not find significant differences in most of the ecological indicators.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The agriculture/cattle raising and cattle raising have a relatively similar ecological impact on the tropical dry forest of Zirándaro, Guerrero.<strong></strong></p>

Germination and seedling growth of five tree species from tropical dry forest in relation to water stress: impact of seed size

2004 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekta Khurana ◽  
J. S. Singh
Keyword(s):  
Water Stress ◽  
Leaf Area ◽  
Seed Size ◽  
Seedling Growth ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Growth Traits ◽  
Tropical Dry Forest ◽  
Dry Forest ◽  
Terminalia Arjuna ◽  
The Impact

The impact of seed size on germination and seedling growth, as affected by water stress, was studied for five tree species from tropical dry forest of India, viz. Albizia procera, Acacia nilotica, Phyllanthus emblica, Terminalia arjuna and Terminalia chebula. Germination tests were conducted under five osmotic potential levels. Seedlings from large (LS) and small (SS) seeds were grown at four soil moisture levels. Observations were made on height, leaf area, biomass and other growth traits such as relative growth rate (RGR), net assimilation rate (NAR), specific leaf area (SLA), and root:shoot (R:S) ratio. Seeds of pioneer species and large seeds, within species, germinated earlier, and with increasing water stress, per cent germination and germination velocity declined. RGR was inversely related with drought tolerance. R:S ratio increased, RGR and SLA declined, but NAR increased with water stress. Notwithstanding successional status, the slow-growing species registered minimum reduction in biomass due to water stress. The response of LS and SS seedlings also differed for some of the growth variables. Increase in NAR could be a compensatory response to water stress, and the marked allocational plasticity could help maximize capture of the limited resource. Seedlings from smaller seeds, particularly of fast-growing species, would be able to cope with mild drought by morphogenetic and physiological plastic response in a better way than those from large seeds. However, seedlings from large seeds had greater survival than those from smaller seeds under intense water stress.

scholarly journals Ecological Assembly Processes Are Coordinated between Bacterial and Viral Communities in Fractured Shale Ecosystems

mSystems ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
R. E. Danczak ◽  
R. A. Daly ◽  
M. A. Borton ◽  
J. C. Stegen ◽  
S. Roux ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Microbial Community ◽  
Microbial Community Structure ◽  
Community Assembly ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Deep Subsurface ◽  
Ecological Dynamics ◽  
Selective Pressures ◽  
Viral Community ◽  
Viral Communities

ABSTRACT The ecological drivers that concurrently act upon both a virus and its host and that drive community assembly are poorly understood despite known interactions between viral populations and their microbial hosts. Hydraulically fractured shale environments provide access to a closed ecosystem in the deep subsurface where constrained microbial and viral community assembly processes can be examined. Here, we used metagenomic analyses of time-resolved-produced fluid samples from two wells in the Appalachian Basin to track viral and host dynamics and to investigate community assembly processes. Hypersaline conditions within these ecosystems should drive microbial community structure to a similar configuration through time in response to common osmotic stress. However, viral predation appears to counterbalance this potentially strong homogeneous selection and pushes the microbial community toward undominated assembly. In comparison, while the viral community was also influenced by substantial undominated processes, it assembled, in part, due to homogeneous selection. When the overall assembly processes acting upon both these communities were directly compared with each other, a significant relationship was revealed, suggesting an association between microbial and viral community development despite differing selective pressures. These results reveal a potentially important balance of ecological dynamics that must be in maintained within this deep subsurface ecosystem in order for the microbial community to persist over extended time periods. More broadly, this relationship begins to provide knowledge underlying metacommunity development across trophic levels. IMPORTANCE Interactions between viral communities and their microbial hosts have been the subject of many recent studies in a wide range of ecosystems. The degree of coordination between ecological assembly processes influencing viral and microbial communities, however, has been explored to a much lesser degree. By using a combined null modeling approach, this study investigated the ecological assembly processes influencing both viral and microbial community structure within hydraulically fractured shale environments. Among other results, significant relationships between the structuring processes affecting both the viral and microbial community were observed, indicating that ecological assembly might be coordinated between these communities despite differing selective pressures. Within this deep subsurface ecosystem, these results reveal a potentially important balance of ecological dynamics that must be maintained to enable long-term microbial community persistence. More broadly, this relationship begins to provide insight into the development of communities across trophic levels.

scholarly journals Acoustic community structure and seasonal turnover in tropical South Asian birds

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 1364-1374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anand Krishnan
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Phylogenetic Diversity ◽  
Tropical Dry Forest ◽  
Bird Community ◽  
Urban Ecosystems ◽  
Dry Forest ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Acoustic Community ◽  
Acoustic Space

Abstract Birds produce diverse acoustic signals, with coexisting species occupying distinct “acoustic niches” to minimize masking, resulting in overdispersion within acoustic space. In tropical regions of the world, an influx of migrants from temperate regions occurs during winter. The effects of these migrants on acoustic community structure and dynamics remain unstudied. Here, I show that in a tropical dry forest bird community occurring within an urban area in India, the influx of winter migrants is accompanied by a change in species composition of the acoustic community. However, in spite of this, the acoustic community remains overdispersed in acoustic niche space. The winter community of vocal birds at this study site additionally exhibits lower energy in the 4–7 kHz frequency bands (consistent with species singing less continuously), as well as lower phylogenetic diversity. My data are thus indicative of seasonal turnover in acoustic communities but suggest that acoustic niches and community structure are stable across seasons. Migrants occupy similar regions of acoustic space as residents and are relatively closely related to some of these species. Their arrival, therefore, leads to greater phylogenetic clustering in the winter and thus lower phylogenetic diversity, although the acoustic community remains overdispersed. Studying seasonal dynamics of acoustic communities thus provides valuable insight into assembly processes, as well as a potential framework for long-term monitoring of urban ecosystems.

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