Mechanisms for maintenance of dominance in a nonclonal desert shrub

Kitchen, Stanley G.; Meyer, Susan E.; Carlson, Stephanie

doi:10.1890/es15-00083.1

Cited by 14 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Two opposing views of desert perennial communities have been presented in the literature: that communities are relatively static and recalcitrant to change vs. that communities are dynamic with rapid turnover in species composition (Shreve 1929, Webb et al 1987, Turner 1990, Cody 2000, Kitchen et al 2015. Our results suggest that both perspectives have merit.…”

Section: Model Of Long-term Vegetation Changementioning

confidence: 59%

Persistence and turnover in desert plant communities during a 37‐yr period of land use and climate change

Abella

Guida

Roberts

et al. 2019

Ecological Monographs

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Understanding long‐term changes in ecological communities during global change is a priority for 21st‐century ecology. Deserts, already at climatic extremes, are of unique interest because they are projected to be ecosystems most responsive to global change. Within a 500‐km2 landscape in the Mojave Desert, USA, we measured perennial plant communities at 100 sites three times (1979, 2008, and 2016) during 37 yr to evaluate six hypotheses of community change. These hypotheses encompassed shifts in community measures (e.g., diversity, cover) and species elevational distributions, biotic homogenization, disproportionately large change at the highest elevations, relationships between turnover and species’ responses to disturbance and drought, and that environmental refugia (e.g., moist topographic positions) would receive species during climatic warming and drying. Most community measures changed temporally, such as species density (species/600 m2) increasing 23% and plant cover doubling between 1979 and 2016. There was no increase in nonnative species and minimal evidence for biotic homogenization. High‐elevation communities did not display greater change than low‐elevation communities. Moreover, environmental refugia factored little in species shifts. While species distributional changes were unrelated to affinity for disturbance, the six most persistent species (persisting on >80% of sites) were long‐lived shrubs not associated with disturbance. Overall, seemingly paradoxically, climatic warming and drying was associated with increasing plant abundance. Comparing the 1970s to 2007–2016, precipitation in the study area declined 16% from 17 to 14 cm/yr and average daily minimum temperature rose 13% (1.2°C). The current climate with fewer freezes, together with reduced grazing, could be among the most optimal for desert perennials in the past century, although potential response lags to continuing warming and drying are uncertain. This study of long‐term elevational shifts in communities during global change is among few in deserts, and the average upward elevational shift of 6 m/decade for species in our study is within the range reported for temperate biomes. However, the 41% of species moving downslope is unusually high. We propose that dynamics within desert perennial communities follow a core‐transient species model where a site's species are either highly persistent or transient in approximately equal proportions.

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Section: Model Of Long-term Vegetation Changementioning

confidence: 59%

Persistence and turnover in desert plant communities during a 37‐yr period of land use and climate change

Abella

Guida

Roberts

et al. 2019

Ecological Monographs

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“…The seedling establishment syndrome exhibited by blackbrush is similar to the pattern exhibited by mast‐seeding trees of low‐disturbance forest communities. Postseedling juvenile survival is relatively high, but growth rates in competition with existing adults are extremely low (Meyer and Pendleton, 2015; Kitchen et al, in press). Just as forest trees form sapling banks, cohorts of blackbrush juveniles form suppressed “seedling banks” that can persist for long periods, but can then respond to gap formation, i.e., the death of a nearby adult, with increased growth (Grime, 1979).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary drivers of mast‐seeding in a long‐lived desert shrub

Meyer

Pendleton

2015

American J of Botany

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Both the evolutionary drivers and proximal regulators of masting in blackbrush are similar to those demonstrated for masting species of mesic environments. Relatively low synchrony across populations in response to regional masting cues occurs at least partly because prior-year environmental cues can trigger masting efforts in years with resource limitation due to suboptimal precipitation, especially in more xeric low-elevation habitats.

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“…United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) data and Penn State STATSGO soil water holding capacity data also contributed to the climate data adjustment and the soil water balance calculations respectively [64]. The WWDT drought data has been intensively applied to climatological and hydrological studies in recent years (see [69][70][71][72][73][74][75]), and has been proved with good reliability. To match the spatial resolution of the MODIS NDVI maps, the PDSI dataset was interpolated to a 250 m × 250 m resolution using bilinear interpolation.…”

Section: Drought Index and Climate Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Drought Sensitivity of Mediterranean Climate Vegetation to Recent Warming: A Case Study in Southern California

et al. 2019

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A combination of drought and high temperatures (“global-change-type drought”) is projected to become increasingly common in Mediterranean climate regions. Recently, Southern California has experienced record-breaking high temperatures coupled with significant precipitation deficits, which provides opportunities to investigate the impacts of high temperatures on the drought sensitivity of Mediterranean climate vegetation. Responses of different vegetation types to drought are quantified using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data for the period 2000–2017. The contrasting responses of the vegetation types to drought are captured by the correlation and regression coefficients between Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) anomalies and the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). A novel bootstrapping regression approach is used to decompose the relationships between the vegetation sensitivity (NDVI–PDSI regression slopes) and the principle climate factors (temperature and precipitation) associated with the drought. Significantly increased sensitivity to drought in warmer locations indicates the important role of temperature in exacerbating vulnerability; however, spatial precipitation variations do not demonstrate significant effects in modulating drought sensitivity. Based on annual NDVI response, chaparral is the most vulnerable community to warming, which will probably be severely affected by hotter droughts in the future. Drought sensitivity of coastal sage scrub (CSS) is also shown to be very responsive to warming in fall and winter. Grassland and developed land will likely be less affected by this warming. The sensitivity of the overall vegetation to temperature increases is particularly concerning, as it is the variable that has had the strongest secular trend in recent decades, which is expected to continue or strengthen in the future. Increased temperatures will probably alter vegetation distribution, as well as possibly increase annual grassland cover, and decrease the extent and ecological services provided by perennial woody Mediterranean climate ecosystems as well.

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Mechanisms for maintenance of dominance in a nonclonal desert shrub

Cited by 14 publications

References 52 publications

Persistence and turnover in desert plant communities during a 37‐yr period of land use and climate change

Persistence and turnover in desert plant communities during a 37‐yr period of land use and climate change

Evolutionary drivers of mast‐seeding in a long‐lived desert shrub

Quantifying Drought Sensitivity of Mediterranean Climate Vegetation to Recent Warming: A Case Study in Southern California

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