Long‐term subtropical grassland plots take a long time to change: Replacement is more important than richness differences for beta diversity

Ward, David; Kirkman, Kevin; Morris, Craig

doi:10.1002/ece3.10195

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Moreover, while manipulating species compositions and abundances in artificially assembled ecosystems can help us understand the ecological consequences of species and diversity losses, the assembly process of these communities is inherently characterized by randomness, and their relevance to real ecosystems continues to be intensely debated [14,15]. By contrast, removal experiments are often conducted in naturally assembled communities characterized by non-random species composition and relative abundance, rendering them more valuable for comprehending the community and ecosystem impacts of the removed species [9,16,17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-Term Responses of Alpine Vegetation to the Removal of Dominant versus Sparse Species

Wang,

2024

Plants

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The mass ratio hypothesis posits that ecosystem functions are predominantly influenced by the dominant species. However, it remains unclear whether a species must be abundant to exert functional dominance. We conducted a removal experiment in an alpine grassland near Pudacuo National Park, Yunnan, China, to assess the community and ecosystem impacts of the removed species. We implemented four treatments as follows: exclusive removal of the most abundant species (Blysmus sinocompressus), exclusive removal of a sparse species with high individual biomass (Primula secundiflora), simultaneous removal of both species, and a control with no removals. Results showed that removing B. sinocompressus significantly reduced biomass production, supporting the mass ratio hypothesis, while removal of P. secundiflora had negligible effects. B. sinocompressus removal positively impacted community metrics like coverage, species evenness, and the Shannon diversity index, but not species richness, likely due to its spatial dominance. Conversely, P. secundiflora removal had minimal community impact, probably due to its limited influence on nearby species. This study underscores the proportionate roles of the dominant species in alpine grasslands, emphasizing that their community and ecosystem impacts are proportional to their abundance.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-Term Responses of Alpine Vegetation to the Removal of Dominant versus Sparse Species

Wang,

2024

Plants

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Long‐term subtropical grassland plots take a long time to change: Replacement is more important than richness differences for beta diversity

Abstract: 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.

Cited by 1 publication

References 201 publications

Short-Term Responses of Alpine Vegetation to the Removal of Dominant versus Sparse Species

Short-Term Responses of Alpine Vegetation to the Removal of Dominant versus Sparse Species

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