Plant diversity and community composition in eastern North American serpentine barrens

2017 ◽  
Vol 144 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn M. Flinn ◽  
Jennifer L. Mikes ◽  
Hannah A. D. Kuhns
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
North American

scholarly journals Water and nitrogen shape winter annual plant diversity and community composition in near‐urban Sonoran Desert preserves

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan M. Wheeler ◽  
Scott L. Collins ◽  
Nancy B. Grimm ◽  
Elizabeth M. Cook ◽  
Christopher Clark ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Sonoran Desert ◽  
Annual Plant ◽  
Winter Annual

scholarly journals Plant and insect herbivore community variation across the Paleocene–Eocene boundary in the Hanna Basin, southeastern Wyoming

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7798
Author(s):  
Lauren E. Azevedo Schmidt ◽  
Regan E. Dunn ◽  
Jason Mercer ◽  
Marieke Dechesne ◽  
Ellen D. Currano
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
High Water ◽  
Insect Herbivore ◽  
Herbivore Damage ◽  
Late Paleocene ◽  
Hanna Basin ◽  
Laramide Basins ◽  
Herbivore Communities

Ecosystem function and stability are highly affected by internal and external stressors. Utilizing paleobotanical data gives insight into the evolutionary processes an ecosystem undergoes across long periods of time, allowing for a more complete understanding of how plant and insect herbivore communities are affected by ecosystem imbalance. To study how plant and insect herbivore communities change during times of disturbance, we quantified community turnover across the Paleocene­–Eocene boundary in the Hanna Basin, southeastern Wyoming. This particular location is unlike other nearby Laramide basins because it has an abundance of late Paleocene and Eocene coal and carbonaceous shales and paucity of well-developed paleosols, suggesting perpetually high water availability. We sampled approximately 800 semi-intact dicot leaves from five stratigraphic levels, one of which occurs late in the Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM). Field collections were supplemented with specimens at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Fossil leaves were classified into morphospecies and herbivore damage was documented for each leaf. We tested for changes in plant and insect herbivore damage diversity using rarefaction and community composition using non-metric multidimensional scaling ordinations. We also documented changes in depositional environment at each stratigraphic level to better contextualize the environment of the basin. Plant diversity was highest during the mid-late Paleocene and decreased into the Eocene, whereas damage diversity was highest at the sites with low plant diversity. Plant communities significantly changed during the late PETM and do not return to pre-PETM composition. Insect herbivore communities also changed during the PETM, but, unlike plant communities, rebound to their pre-PETM structure. These results suggest that insect herbivore communities responded more strongly to plant community composition than to the diversity of species present.

scholarly journals Relationship between moth (night active Lepidoptera) diversity and vegetation characteristics in southern Sweden

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 1005-1015
Author(s):  
Torbjörn Tyler
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Vascular Plant ◽  
Habitat Characteristics ◽  
Vegetation Composition ◽  
Vascular Plant Diversity ◽  
Site Characteristics ◽  
Tree Canopy Cover ◽  
Wide Range

Abstract The diversity and community composition of moths (both macro- and micromoths) at 32 sites, representing a wide range of habitat types (forests, grasslands, wetlands, agricultural and urban areas) within a restricted region in central Scania, southern-most Sweden, was investigated by use of light moth traps and compared with vascular plant species richness and habitat characteristics. The results revealed a highly significant general association between vegetation composition and the composition of the moth community and multivariate (CCA) analyses indicated light availability and soil fertility parameters (pH and macronutrients) to be the habitat characteristics that best correlated with moth community composition. Less strong, but still significant, positive relationships between moth abundance and local vascular plant diversity were also revealed. Moth species richness was positively correlated with diversity of woody plant genera in the neighborhood, but not with local vascular plant diversity in general. As for more general site characteristics, there were tendencies for higher moth richness and abundance at sites with more productive soils (well-drained, high pH, high nutrient availability), while shading/tree canopy cover, management, soil disturbance regimes and nectar production appeared unrelated to moth community parameters. It is concluded that local moth assemblages are strongly influenced by site characteristics and vegetation composition. Implications for insect conservation: The results show that obtaining moth data on a local scale is useful for conservation planning and does not need to be very cumbersome. Local moth assemblages monitored are indeed related to local site characteristics of conservation relevance.

scholarly journals Microbial associations and spatial proximity predict North American moose ( Alces alces ) gastrointestinal community composition

2020 ◽  
Vol 89 (3) ◽  
pp. 817-828 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas M. Fountain‐Jones ◽  
Nicholas J. Clark ◽  
Amy C. Kinsley ◽  
Michelle Carstensen ◽  
James Forester ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
North American ◽  
Alces Alces ◽  
Spatial Proximity ◽  
Microbial Associations

Population density of North American elk: effects on plant diversity

Oecologia ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 161 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelley M. Stewart ◽  
R. Terry Bowyer ◽  
John G. Kie ◽  
Brian L. Dick ◽  
Roger W. Ruess
Keyword(s):  
Population Density ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
North American ◽  
North American Elk

scholarly journals Rhizosphere bacterial community composition depends on plant diversity legacy in soil and plant species identity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc W. Schmid ◽  
Terhi Hahl ◽  
Sofia J. van Moorsel ◽  
Cameron Wagg ◽  
Gerlinde B. De Deyn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Diversity ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Bacterial Communities ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Plant Species Diversity ◽  
Species Identity ◽  
Soil Biodiversity

AbstractSoil microbes are known to be involved in a number of essential ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling, plant productivity and the maintenance of plant species diversity. However, how plant species diversity and identity affect soil microbial diversity and community composition is largely unknown. We tested whether, over the course of 11 years, distinct soil bacterial communities developed under plant monocultures and mixtures, and if over this timeframe plants with a monoculture or mixture history changed in the microbial communities they associated with. For eight species, we grew offspring of plants that had been grown for 11 years in the same monocultures or mixtures (monoculture- or mixture-type plants) in pots inoculated with microbes extracted from the monoculture and mixture soils. After five months of growth in the glasshouse, we collected rhizosphere soil from each plant and used 16S-rRNA gene sequencing to determine the community composition and diversity of the bacterial communities. Microbial community structure in the plant rhizosphere was primarily determined by soil legacy (monoculture vs. mixture soil) and by plant species identity, but not by plant legacy (monoculture- vs. mixture-type plants). In seven out of the eight plant species bacterial abundance was larger when inoculated with microbes from mixture soil. We conclude that plant diversity can strongly affect belowground community composition and diversity, feeding back to the assemblage of rhizosphere microbial communities in newly establishing plants. Thereby our work demonstrates that concerns for plant biodiversity loss are also concerns for soil biodiversity loss.

Effects of plant diversity, community composition and environmental parameters on productivity in montane European grasslands

Oecologia ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 142 (4) ◽  
pp. 606-615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ansgar Kahmen ◽  
J�rg Perner ◽  
Volker Audorff ◽  
Wolfgang Weisser ◽  
Nina Buchmann
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Environmental Parameters

Multidecadal shifts in forest plant diversity and community composition across glacial landforms in northern lower Michigan, USA

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-135
Author(s):  
Raleigh D. Ricart ◽  
Douglas R. Pearsall ◽  
Peter S. Curtis
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Patterns ◽  
Ecosystem Responses ◽  
Community Assemblage ◽  
Local Plant ◽  
The University ◽  
Glacial Landforms

Understanding how plant community assemblage is affected by spatial and temporal patterns is crucial to understanding forest ecosystem responses to disturbance, including future climate change. In this article, we tracked how diversity and composition are distributed through space and time in a midsuccessional mixed hardwood forest in northern lower Michigan, United States. This region’s geographically and abiotically distinct glacial landforms influence both the spatial and temporal dynamics of its forest communities. Vegetation sampling plots (n = 87) were established at the University of Michigan Biological Station in 1990 and resampled in 2015. Vegetation in the overstory, sapling, and groundcover layers was censused. Abiotic variables, including elevation, pH, and soil nutrients, were measured in a subset of plots (n = 40). There were strong differences in diversity and community composition among glacial landforms, with the moraine having a 31% greater species richness in the groundcover layer compared with those of the other glacial landforms. Surprisingly, plant communities across all three vegetation layers showed little change over the 25-year period, and we found no evidence of differences in successional rates among glacial landforms. Our findings indicate that glacial landforms have a large influence on the production and maintenance of local plant diversity and community composition in this area and suggest that successional dynamics may manifest themselves over much longer time periods in these northern biomes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document