A conceptual model of plant community changes following cessation of cultivation in semi‐arid grassland

Wong, Nathan; Morgan, John; Dorrough, Josh

doi:10.1111/j.1654-109x.2010.01080.x

Cited by 54 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…In the case of KKGR, a different cultivation history (ploughed but not cultivated) resulted in different initial conditions (residual native vegetation), but postabandonment patterns were similar to those of the other study areas, despite reassembly being faster and more complete. These findings agree with those of Wong et al (2010) who showed directional changes in species composition and community structure in this region. Additionally, the current study was undertaken in a period of severe drought, which did not appear to have a major effect on the trajectory of succession.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 94%

“…Foster and Tilman, 2000;Inouye et al, 1987;Meiners et al, 2002;Pickett et al, 2001), a high rate of change in the first 10e20 years after abandonment has been found in several recent studies in arid and semi-arid regions (e.g. Bonet, 2004;Castellanos et al, 2005;Wong et al, 2010) which, together with the current study, offer some contrast to the view that the likelihood of slow or arrested succession is higher in harsh environments (e.g. Hobbs et al, 2006).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 67%

“…These variables are often found to be the most important for plant growth and to change during succession (e.g. Standish et al, 2006;Wong et al, 2010).…”

Section: Soil Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The level of adaptation of the native community to agricultural disturbance can be an important constraint on recovery and, in areas where agriculture represents a novel disturbance and where there is a pool of well-adapted exotic species, a trajectory back to a pre-disturbance state may be unlikely . As such, the evolution of Australian grassland communities in the absence of hardhoofed mammals and large-scale soil disturbance from glaciation and volcanism probably affects their ability to recover from cultivation (Wong et al, 2010). Thus, it is unclear if patterns of community reassembly and generalisations derived from classic successional studies hold in semi-arid regions or the southern hemisphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…In the current study region, <5% of the native grasslands remain (McDougall and Kirkpatrick, 1993) and the remnant communities are of immense conservation significance. However, only one old field study has been undertaken in this region; using a state-and-transition framework, Wong et al (2010) concluded that the exotic-dominated state that forms after abandonment is unstable and demonstrates a directional change into a stable state resembling that of uncultivated grassland, but is characterised by a lack of several native species. The objective of the current study was to increase the understanding of successional processes in semi-arid grasslands in southern Australia by sampling across four study areas and two years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Recovery of soil and vegetation in semi-arid Australian old fields

Scott

Morgan

2012

Journal of Arid Environments

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 94%

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 67%

“…These variables are often found to be the most important for plant growth and to change during succession (e.g. Standish et al, 2006;Wong et al, 2010).…”

Section: Soil Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Recovery of soil and vegetation in semi-arid Australian old fields

Scott

Morgan

2012

Journal of Arid Environments

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Livestock production land and conservation areas play a complementary role in the conservation of a critically endangered grassland bird

Nugent

Baker-Gabb

Antos

et al. 2022

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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1. In many parts of the world, livestock production and biodiversity conservation are important land uses of native grasslands in agricultural landscapes. Approaches to managing grasslands typically differ between production farms and conservation areas as they have different goals. Such differences may have consequent effects on the spatial and temporal habitat suitability for grassland fauna. In semi-arid grasslands of south-eastern Australia, the critically endangered Plains-wanderer (Pedionomus torquatus) is a grassland habitat-specialist bird that can occur on land managed for livestock production and conservation, but it is unclear if, and when, habitat suitability is affected in each land-use type.2. Here, we investigate how land-use type (livestock production, conservation) and rainfall (preceding accumulated rainfall) affect habitat suitability for the Plainswanderer using 11 years of bird occurrence and remotely sensed habitat structure data.3. We found habitat suitability for the Plains-wanderer was driven by an interaction between land use and rainfall, with conservation areas supporting larger areas of preferred habitat structure during dry periods but less during wet periods. By contrast, Plains-wanderers were more likely to occur on livestock production farms during wet periods. We speculate this is because higher grazing pressure on livestock production farms was able to limit biomass accumulation and, hence, maintain more areas of preferred habitat structure. 4. Our findings show that land used for livestock production can complement conservation areas by providing preferred habitat for the Plains-wanderer during climatic periods that promote grass growth. Furthermore, we highlight that land use and climate are important temporal drivers of grassland dynamics, and approaches to biodiversity conservation should consider how patterns of habitat suitability may shift across landscapes over time. Strategic, landscape-scale planning and effective This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Plant community responses to historical wildfire in a shrubland–grassland ecotone reveal hybrid disturbance response

Porensky¹,

Derner

Pellatz³

2018

Ecosphere

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Citation: Porensky, L. M., J. D. Derner, and D. W. Pellatz. 2018. Plant community responses to historical wildfire in a shrubland-grassland ecotone reveal hybrid disturbance response. Ecosphere 9(8):Abstract. Most ecotones include structural and taxonomic elements from both adjacent communities, but it remains unclear how these elements function and interact within ecotones. We investigated long-term plant community responses to wildfire in a 7000-km 2 ecotone between mixed-grass prairie and sagebrush steppe ecosystems, which have dramatically different historical fire regimes. We asked whether plant community responses to wildfire in the ecotone were more similar to mixed-grass prairie, sagebrush steppe, or a hybrid of these two. We sampled plant community composition at 70 pairs of transects located inside and outside of wildfires that burned from 1937 to 2012. We determined whether (1) wildfires predicted plant community composition, (2) plant community response to fire varied based on abiotic factors, and (3) effects of wildfire varied based on time since fire. Plant community responses to wildfire did not vary substantially across the study region, despite continuous plant community variation in response to abiotic factors. Overstory responses were characteristic of sagebrush steppe. Burned transects had <10% as much big sagebrush cover as unburned transects, and cover did not increase with time since fire. In contrast, understory plant community responses to fire were similar to mixed-grass prairie. Burned sites had high forb cover in the short term and perennial grass cover in the long term. Within an ecotone, different components of the plant community can maintain functional fidelity to their home ecosystems, despite being spatially juxtaposed. The idea of hybrid disturbance response may provide new opportunities for targeted management within ecotones.

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A conceptual model of plant community changes following cessation of cultivation in semi‐arid grassland

Cited by 54 publications

References 48 publications

Recovery of soil and vegetation in semi-arid Australian old fields

Recovery of soil and vegetation in semi-arid Australian old fields

Livestock production land and conservation areas play a complementary role in the conservation of a critically endangered grassland bird

Plant community responses to historical wildfire in a shrubland–grassland ecotone reveal hybrid disturbance response

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