Herbivory affects salt marsh succession dynamics by suppressing the recovery of dominant species

Daleo, Pedro; Alberti, Juan; Pascual, Jesús; Canepuccia, Alejandro D.; Iribarne, Oscar

doi:10.1007/s00442-014-2903-0

Cited by 24 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…; Kuijper & Bakker ; Daleo et al. ). Here we show that even in undisturbed patches herbivores can decrease dominance, positively affecting plant diversity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Herbivory and presence of a dominant competitor interactively affect salt marsh plant diversity

Daleo

Alberti

Bruschetti

et al. 2017

J Vegetation Science

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Question Do herbivory and the presence of a dominant grass competitor interactively affect herbaceous communities and assembly rules in a SW Atlantic salt marsh? Location Upper salt marsh, Mar Chiquita coastal lagoon, Argentina. Methods We performed a field factorial experiment over 4 yr to evaluate the separate and interactive effects of (1) herbivory and (2) competition with the dominant grass species (i.e. Spartina densiflora) on the salt marsh subordinate plant community. The factorial design includes dominant grass removal and herbivory manipulation. Results Our results show that herbivory and presence of the dominant competitor interactively affect subordinate plant cover and diversity. Results further indicate that, in the presence of the dominant competitor, patch‐to‐patch variation in subordinate species composition is lower than expected at random, a result consistent with the expected outcomes of deterministic exclusion following light competition. Removal of the dominant grass nevertheless led to patch‐to‐patch dissimilarity in subordinate species composition, far from the dissimilarity expected at random, indicating increased importance of deterministic processes that drive communities to diverge. Conclusion Our results show that the conditional effect of herbivory on plant diversity can be determined by the presence of a single plant species. Dominant plant species, in addition, may not only affect plant species diversity by determining the number and identity of subordinate species in a given patch (i.e. α‐diversity) but also by affecting spatial variability through habitat homogenization.

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“…; Kuijper & Bakker ; Daleo et al. ). Here we show that even in undisturbed patches herbivores can decrease dominance, positively affecting plant diversity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…; Daleo et al. ; Pascual et al. ) by consuming not only the dominant cordgrass S. densiflora but also other subordinate plant species (Vicari et al.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Herbivory and presence of a dominant competitor interactively affect salt marsh plant diversity

Daleo

Alberti

Bruschetti

et al. 2017

J Vegetation Science

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“…2012; Daleo et al. 2014), including cascading effects of top predator presence and identity on consumers and plants (Silliman and Bertness 2002; Kimbro 2012; Bertness et al. 2014).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consumer trait variation influences tritrophic interactions in salt marsh communities

Hughes

Hanley

Orozco

et al. 2015

Ecology and Evolution

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The importance of intraspecific variation has emerged as a key question in community ecology, helping to bridge the gap between ecology and evolution. Although much of this work has focused on plant species, recent syntheses have highlighted the prevalence and potential importance of morphological, behavioral, and life history variation within animals for ecological and evolutionary processes. Many small-bodied consumers live on the plant that they consume, often resulting in host plant-associated trait variation within and across consumer species. Given the central position of consumer species within tritrophic food webs, such consumer trait variation may play a particularly important role in mediating trophic dynamics, including trophic cascades. In this study, we used a series of field surveys and laboratory experiments to document intraspecific trait variation in a key consumer species, the marsh periwinkle Littoraria irrorata, based on its host plant species (Spartina alterniflora or Juncus roemerianus) in a mixed species assemblage. We then conducted a 12-week mesocosm experiment to examine the effects of Littoraria trait variation on plant community structure and dynamics in a tritrophic salt marsh food web. Littoraria from different host plant species varied across a suite of morphological and behavioral traits. These consumer trait differences interacted with plant community composition and predator presence to affect overall plant stem height, as well as differentially alter the density and biomass of the two key plant species in this system. Whether due to genetic differences or phenotypic plasticity, trait differences between consumer types had significant ecological consequences for the tritrophic marsh food web over seasonal time scales. By altering the cascading effects of the top predator on plant community structure and dynamics, consumer differences may generate a feedback over longer time scales, which in turn influences the degree of trait divergence in subsequent consumer populations.

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“…A great part of the salt marsh C stock is belowground, in the form of living roots or nonliving litter; thus, belowground biomass allocation patterns, along with total primary production, are the main plant traits that regulate soil C sequestration (De Deyn et al 2008). Seed availability, in addition, can determine salt marsh plant composition at patch size (Rand 2000), which would have important consequences, particularly for bare patch dynamics (e.g., Daleo et al 2014), and thus, system functioning. Changes in stem density and internode length drive changes in how densely packed stems are, affecting water flow, sediment stabilization and retention, evaporation, and sediment salinity, as well as refuge availability to invertebrate animals (Brusati and Grosholz 2006).…”

Section: Beyond Biomass Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical stress modifies top‐down and bottom‐up forcing on plant growth and reproduction in a coastal ecosystem

Daleo

Alberti

Bruschetti

et al. 2015

Ecology

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Bottom-up and top-down effects act together to exert strong control over plant growth and reproduction, but how physical stress modifies those interactive forces remains unclear. Even though empirical evidence is scarce, theory predicts that the importance of both top-down- and bottom-up forces may decrease as physical stress increases. Here, we experimentally evaluate in the field the separate and interactive effect of salinity, nutrient availability, and crab herbivory on plant above- and belowground biomass, as well as on sexual and clonal reproduction in the salt marsh plant Spartina densiflora. Results show that the outcome of the interaction between nutrient availability and herbivory is highly context dependent, not only varying with the abiotic context (i.e., with or without increased salinity stress), but also with the dependent variable considered. Contrary to theoretical predictions, our results show that, consistently across different measured variables, salinity stress did not cancel bottom-up (i.e., nutrients) or top-down (i.e., consumers) control, but has additive effects. Our results support emerging theory by highlighting that, under many conditions, physical stress can act additively with, or even stimulate, consumer control, especially in cases where the physical stress is only experienced by basal levels of the trophic chain. Abiotic stress, as well as bottom-up and top-down factors, can affect salt marsh structure and function not only by affecting biomass production but also by having other indirect effects, such as changing patterns in plant biomass allocation and reproduction.

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Herbivory affects salt marsh succession dynamics by suppressing the recovery of dominant species

Cited by 24 publications

References 64 publications

Herbivory and presence of a dominant competitor interactively affect salt marsh plant diversity

Herbivory and presence of a dominant competitor interactively affect salt marsh plant diversity

Consumer trait variation influences tritrophic interactions in salt marsh communities

Physical stress modifies top‐down and bottom‐up forcing on plant growth and reproduction in a coastal ecosystem

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