Patterns of seed dispersal syndromes on serpentine soils: examining the roles of habitat patchiness, soil infertility and correlated functional traits

Spasojevic, Marko J.; Damschen, Ellen I.; Harrison, Susan

doi:10.1080/17550874.2012.678506

Cited by 37 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…). We obtained mean trait values of SLA and leaf carbon : nitrogen ratio (C : N) for a subset of our species for which data were available from an existing data set on leaf traits of the California flora, collected elsewhere in California (Spasojevic, Damschen & Harrison ). Trait data were available for 126 of our 329 species (Appendix S1), which were randomly distributed among biogeographic affinity classes ( anova , F = 0.29, P = 0.88) and represented 63% of total vegetation cover in the data set.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest disturbance accelerates thermophilization of understory plant communities

et al. 2015

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Summary1. Climate change is likely to shift plant communities towards species from warmer regions, a process termed 'thermophilization'. In forests, canopy disturbances such as fire may hasten this process by increasing temperature and moisture stress in the understory, yet little is known about the mechanisms that might drive such shifts, or the consequences of these processes for plant diversity. 2. We sampled understory vegetation across a gradient of disturbance severity from a large-scale natural experiment created by the factorial combination of forest thinning and wildfire in California. Using information on evolutionary history and functional traits, we tested the hypothesis that disturbance severity should increase community dominance by species with southern-xeric biogeographic affinities. We also analysed how climatic productivity mediates the effect of disturbance severity, and quantified the functional trait response to disturbance, to investigate potential mechanisms behind thermophilization. 3. The proportion of north-temperate flora decreased, while the proportion of southern-xeric flora increased, with greater disturbance severity and less canopy closure. Disturbance caused a greater reduction of north-temperate flora in productive (wetter) forests, while functional trait analyses suggested that species colonizing after severe disturbance may be adapted to increased water stress. Forests with intermediate disturbance severity, where abundances of northern and southern species were most equitable, had the highest stand-scale understory diversity. 4. Synthesis. Canopy disturbance is likely to accelerate plant community shifts towards species from warmer regions, via its effects on understory microclimate at small scales. Understory diversity can be enhanced by intermediate disturbance regimes that promote the coexistence of species with different biogeographic affinities.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest disturbance accelerates thermophilization of understory plant communities

et al. 2015

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“…These were previously measured for each species at the plot using standard protocols (Cornelissen et al . ; see Spasojevic, Damschen & Harrison for full details). Using the community data and trait values, we calculated each plot's functional trait dispersion, which is a richness‐independent metric that measures the mean distance of each species from the multivariate centroid of all species at that plot (Laliberte & Legendre ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Retracted: Does natural variation in diversity affect biotic resistance?

Harrison¹,

Cornell²,

Grace

2015

Journal of Ecology

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Summary Theories linking diversity to ecosystem function have been challenged by the widespread observation of more exotic species in more diverse native communities. Few studies have addressed the key underlying process by dissecting how community diversity is shaped by the same environmental gradients that determine biotic and abiotic resistance to new invaders. In grasslands on highly heterogeneous soils, we used addition of a recent invader, competitor removal and structural equation modelling (SEM) to analyse soil influences on community diversity, biotic and abiotic resistance and invader success. Biotic resistance, measured by reduction in invader success in the presence of the resident community, was negatively correlated with species richness and functional diversity. However, in the multivariate SEM framework, biotic resistance was independent of all forms of diversity and was positively affected by soil fertility via community biomass. Abiotic resistance, measured by invader success in the absence of the resident community, peaked on infertile soils with low biomass and high community diversity. Net invader success was determined by biotic resistance, consistent with this invader's better performance on infertile soils in unmanipulated conditions. Seed predation added slightly to biotic resistance without qualitatively changing the results. Soil‐related genotypic variation in the invader also did not affect the results. Synthesis. In natural systems, diversity may be correlated with invasibility and yet have no effect on either biotic or abiotic resistance to invasion. More generally, the environmental causes of variation in diversity should not be overlooked when considering the potential functional consequences of diversity.

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“…Seed‐banking species may be favoured in isolated habitats, since a “temporal rescue effect” may prevent stochastic extinctions during times of environmental stress (Buoro & Carlson, ; Marini et al., ). Research in another patchy edaphic system has shown that dispersal traits can also come “along for the ride” by being correlated with other traits, such as stress tolerance, that have a greater role in shaping community composition along environmental and spatial gradients (Spasojevic et al., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, other studies have found that habitat isolation can favour poor dispersers, in part because species that invest heavily in long‐distance dispersal may be at a disadvantage in small, isolated patches if most of their propagules will fall into the inhospitable matrix (Bonte, Hovestadt, & Poethke, ; Negoita et al., ; Purschke, Sykes, Reitalu, Poschlod, & Prentice, ; Riba et al., ). Poor dispersers can also be favoured in isolated patches if traits associated with stress tolerance are correlated with dispersal traits via phylogenetic relationships (Spasojevic, Damschen, & Harrison, ). Although explanations for associations between dispersal traits and patch isolation remain incomplete, mathematical models suggest that contingencies such as disturbance and plant life span could cause plants with better dispersal abilities to have either positive or negative responses to habitat fragmentation (Büchi & Vuilleumier, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Multilevel models (mixed models) offer a promising and adaptable alternative to these approaches, in which the influences of multiple trait–environment interactions can be evaluated in a single model that provides information about both the presence and absence of individual species and the composition of the community as a whole; thus, multilevel models allow the simultaneous analyses at both the species and community levels (Jamil, Ozinga, Kleyer, & Ter Braak, ; Miller et al., in review; Pollock et al., ). Multilevel models also make it possible to include phylogenies to account for phylogenetic relatedness among species (Li, Ives, & Waller, ), since phylogenetic non‐independence can be a confounding factor in trait analyses (Li & Ives, ) and closely related species may exhibit trait syndromes (correlated traits across different life‐history axes; Spasojevic et al., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Early‐ and late‐flowering guilds respond differently to landscape spatial structure

et al. 2017

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Species with unique phenologies have distinct trait syndromes and environmental affinities, yet there has been little exploration of whether community assembly processes differ for plants with different phenologies. In this study, we ask whether early‐ and late‐blooming species differ in the ways that dispersal, persistence and resource acquisition traits shape plant occurrence patterns in patchy habitats. We sampled plant communities in 51 Ozark dolomite glade grasslands, which range in size from <1 ha to >100 ha. We modelled the occurrence of 71 spring‐ and 43 summer‐blooming grassland species in these patches, using as predictors both environmental variables (landscape structure, soil resources) and plant traits related to dispersal, longevity and resource acquisition. We were especially interested in how the environmental variables and plant traits interacted to determine the occurrence of phenological strategies in habitats that vary in size and isolation. Summer‐blooming species with better persistence and dispersal abilities had higher relative frequencies in smaller, more isolated habitat patches, and summer‐blooming species with higher specific leaf area—suggesting fast growth and low stress tolerance—were more likely to occur in patches with greater soil organic matter and clay content. However, spring‐blooming species showed much weaker interactions between functional traits and environmental gradients, perhaps because environmental conditions are less harsh in spring than in summer. Synthesis. Several axes of plant life‐history variation may simultaneously influence community responses to habitat connectivity. In this case, explicitly considering plant phenology helped identify generalizable relationships between functional traits and landscape spatial structure.

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Patterns of seed dispersal syndromes on serpentine soils: examining the roles of habitat patchiness, soil infertility and correlated functional traits

Cited by 37 publications

References 85 publications

Forest disturbance accelerates thermophilization of understory plant communities

Forest disturbance accelerates thermophilization of understory plant communities

Retracted: Does natural variation in diversity affect biotic resistance?

Early‐ and late‐flowering guilds respond differently to landscape spatial structure

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