Decomposability of lichens and bryophytes from across an elevational gradient under standardized conditions

Zuijlen, Kristel van; Roos, Ruben E.; Klanderud, Kari; Lang, Simone I.; Wardle, David A.; Asplund, Johan

doi:10.1111/oik.07257

Cited by 8 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…We used five sites along an elevational gradient spanning 500 m in Finse in southern Norway (60°33′–60°38′ N, 7°34′–7°42′ E) that were positioned at approximately 1,120, 1,240, 1,360, 1,480 and 1,600 m a.s.l. on a south‐facing slope on acidic granite and gneiss bedrock, as described in Roos et al (2019b), van Zuijlen et al (2020) and Asplund et al (2021). The lowest elevation had a growing season that was 54 days longer than at the highest elevation, and the average July temperature decreased with 0.9°C with each level (120 m) of increasing elevation (Roos et al, 2019b; Appendix ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divergent responses of functional diversity to an elevational gradient for vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens

Asplund

Zuijlen

Roos

et al. 2022

J Vegetation Science

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Question Cold environments are stressful for vascular plants, and stress‐tolerant non‐vascular photoautotrophs, e.g. bryophytes and lichens, become relatively more important as competition from vascular plants decreases towards higher elevations. Under increasingly stressful climatic conditions, species assembly of vascular plants is commonly driven more by environmental filtering, and abiotic constraints may lead to increased similarity between species and thus low functional diversity. Because bryophytes and lichens are less constrained by harsh environments, environmental filtering may be less strong. Instead, reduced competition from vascular plants can potentially free up niche space for non‐vascular vegetation. Therefore, we hypothesized that functional diversity of vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens are likely to show contrasting responses to elevation. Location Finse Alpine Research Centre, Southern Norway. Methods We utilized measurements of species abundance and functional traits of the three groups along a 500‐m elevational gradient in alpine southern Norway and calculated multi‐trait and single‐trait functional dispersion. Results Functional diversity of vascular plants declined with elevation, indicating increased environmental filtering. By contrast, functional diversity of lichens and bryophytes increased along the same gradient, suggesting they are less exposed to environmental filtering, in line with our hypothesis. Instead, they likely benefit from the lower abundance of vascular plants at higher elevation. Conclusions Our findings suggest that different photoautotroph groups vary in how they respond to the same environmental gradient, which may contribute to contrasting community assembly processes across groups. These divergent responses likely occur because non‐vascular vegetation differs from vascular plants in terms of nutrient acquisition and water economy strategies, meaning that they respond differently to the same factors. This highlights the need to explicitly consider bryophytes and lichens in community‐level studies whenever these groups are abundant.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divergent responses of functional diversity to an elevational gradient for vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens

Asplund

Zuijlen

Roos

et al. 2022

J Vegetation Science

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“…Carbon and nutrients fixed by lichens are ultimately released to the ecosystem through litter decomposition or consumption by various animal groups. There has been a growing interest in how lichen traits drive the rate of these processes (as reviewed by Asplund & Wardle and van Zuijlen et al [75,98]). Lichen palatability is governed by qualitative and quantitative variation in metabolites [33,[99][100][101].…”

Section: Supporting: Biogeochemistrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional Traits in Lichen Ecology: A Review of Challenge and Opportunity

et al. 2021

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Community ecology has experienced a major transition, from a focus on patterns in taxonomic composition, to revealing the processes underlying community assembly through the analysis of species functional traits. The power of the functional trait approach is its generality, predictive capacity such as with respect to environmental change, and, through linkage of response and effect traits, the synthesis of community assembly with ecosystem function and services. Lichens are a potentially rich source of information about how traits govern community structure and function, thereby creating opportunity to better integrate lichens into ‘mainstream’ ecological studies, while lichen ecology and conservation can also benefit from using the trait approach as an investigative tool. This paper brings together a range of author perspectives to review the use of traits in lichenology, particularly with respect to European ecosystems from the Mediterranean to the Arctic-Alpine. It emphasizes the types of traits that lichenologists have used in their studies, both response and effect, the bundling of traits towards the evolution of life-history strategies, and the critical importance of scale (both spatial and temporal) in functional trait ecology.

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“…Morphological shoot traits, and colony traits such as moss layer depth, colony density and surface texture and color, are important for determining the physical effects of bryophytes on tundra ecosystems. For instance, decomposition rates can vary more than 10-fold between the extremely recalcitrant Sphagnum mosses and more nitrogen rich species such as Ptilidium ciliare and Pleurozium schreberi (Lang et al 2009;van Zuijlen et al 2020) and water holding capacity may vary five-fold (Elumeeva et al 2011). Such information is obtained by systematically screening species for important effect traits.…”

Section: Ecosystem Functions and Functional Diversity Of Tundra Bryophytesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some functional traits of bryophytes may, however, themselves be responsive to environmental change causing considerable intraspecific trait variation in addition to interspecific trait variation that is caused by species turnover. For example, bryophyte tissue P content and shoot water holding capacity and growth showed high variation within species, while traits like pH, N content and litter decomposability showed less intra-than interspecific variation in alpine ecosystems (Jägerbrand et al 2014;Roos et al 2019;van Zuijlen et al 2020). However, Roos et al (2019) concluded that bryophyte species turnover rather than intraspecific variation drove changes in community abundance-weighted means of all six measured traits (N and P concentration and ratio, pH, specific leaf area and water holding capacity) across an elevational gradient.…”

Section: Functional Trait Responses To the Environment And Intraspecific Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can bryophyte groups increase functional resolution in tundra ecosystems?

et al. 2022

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The relative contribution of bryophytes to plant diversity, primary productivity, and ecosystem functioning increases towards colder climates. Bryophytes respond to environmental changes at the species level, but because bryophyte species are relatively difficult to identify, they are often lumped into one functional group. Consequently, bryophyte function remains poorly resolved. Here, we explore how higher resolution of bryophyte functional diversity can be encouraged and implemented in tundra ecological studies. We briefly review previous bryophyte functional classifications and the roles of bryophytes in tundra ecosystems and their susceptibility to environmental change. Based on shoot morphology and colony organization, we then propose twelve easily distinguishable bryophyte functional groups. To illustrate how bryophyte functional groups can help elucidate variation in bryophyte effects and responses, we compiled existing data on water holding capacity, a key bryophyte trait. Although plant functional groups, can mask potentially high inter- and intraspecific variability, we found better separation of bryophyte functional group means compared to previous grouping systems regarding water holding capacity. This suggests that our bryophyte functional groups truly represent variation in the functional roles of bryophytes in tundra ecosystems. Lastly, we provide recommendations to improve monitoring of bryophyte community changes in tundra study sites.

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Decomposability of lichens and bryophytes from across an elevational gradient under standardized conditions

Cited by 8 publications

References 69 publications

Divergent responses of functional diversity to an elevational gradient for vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens

Divergent responses of functional diversity to an elevational gradient for vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens

Functional Traits in Lichen Ecology: A Review of Challenge and Opportunity

Can bryophyte groups increase functional resolution in tundra ecosystems?

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