Resource competition and suppression of plants colonizing early successional old fields

Kosola, Kevin R.; Gross, Katherine L.

doi:10.1007/s004420050704

Cited by 37 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Second, because C. vulgare generally occurs in disturbed habitats, low vegetation density may decrease the importance of competition in C. vulgare performance. Light competition, which can strongly suppress performance of rosette-forming plants in particular (Wilson 1993), is hypothesized to be low at relatively early successional sites, increasing as succession proceeds (Kosola and Gross 1999). However, the relatively high cover of ambient vegetation at our sites, averaging 65-90%, makes this hypothesis an unlikely explanation for our results.…”

Section: Effects Of Competition Contextmentioning

confidence: 69%

No interaction between competition and herbivory in limiting introduced Cirsium vulgare rosette growth and reproduction

2009

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Both competition and herbivory have been shown to reduce plant survival, growth, and reproduction. Much less is known about whether competition and herbivory interact in determining plant performance, especially for introduced, weedy plant species in the invaded habitat. We simultaneously evaluated both the main and interactive effects of plant neighbors and insect herbivory on rosette growth and seed reproduction in the year of flowering for Cirsium vulgare (bull thistle, spear thistle), an introduced Eurasian species, in tallgrass prairie in 2 years. Effects of insect herbivory were strong and consistent in both years, causing reduced plant growth and seed production, whereas the effects of competition with established vegetation were weak. The amount of herbivore damage inflicted on rosettes did not depend on the presence of neighbor plants. We also found no interaction between competition and herbivory on key parameters of plant growth and fitness. The results of this study contradict the hypothesis that competitive context interacts with insect herbivory in limiting the invasiveness of this introduced thistle. Further, the results provide additional, experimental evidence that high levels of herbivory on established rosettes by native insects exert significant biotic resistance to the invasiveness of C. vulgare in western tallgrass prairie.

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Section: Effects Of Competition Contextmentioning

confidence: 69%

No interaction between competition and herbivory in limiting introduced Cirsium vulgare rosette growth and reproduction

2009

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“…The proportional increase in grasses and perennials in the aboveground biomass during secondary succession (Montalvo, 1992) have been found in several experiments (Huenneke and Mooney, 1989;Hansson and Hagelfors, 1998;Kosola and Gross, 1999) and are characteristic of the transit to mid-succesional stage.…”

Section: Productivity-diversity Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 58%

“…For the three sites where biomass was sorted into grasses, legumes and non-legume forbs was observed a gradual increase in the contribution of grasses as a result of sowing and temporal development. Such a pattern is commonly found for secondary succession (Kosola and Gross, 1999). Annuals and perennials differ in characteristics related to nutrient retention and turnover, including size, relative growth rate resulting from specific leaf area and leaf nitrogen content (Garnier et al, 1997), rooting depth, root to shoot ratio and foliage C/N ratio (Hooper and Vitousek, 1997).…”

Section: Biodiversity-ecosystem Processesmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…These are opportunists with relatively poor root exploitation capacity (Grime, 1997). During the initial stage of land abandonment the initially colonising plant species are replaced by persistent perennials (Hansson and Hagelfors, 1998;Kosola and Gross, 1999). If plant propagules reach abandoned arable land by the time the vegetation is dominated by persistent Science Publications AJEAS perennials, poor establishment conditions can be crucial constraints of succession to species rich vegetation.…”

Section: Biodiversity Versus Secondary Successionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Restoration of Biodiversity and Ecosystem

Santa-Regina¹

2013

American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences

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Succession is one of the most studied processes in ecology and succession theory provides strong predictability. However, few attempts have been made to influence the course of succession thereby testing the hypothesis that the passage of one stage is essential to enter a next one. At each stage of succession ecosystem processes may be affected by the diversity of species present, but there is little empirical evidence showing that plant species diversity may affect succession. The main objective in the present study is to test if there is any effect of plant species diversity on the functioning of artificially-created grassland communities. We were mostly interested in how successful is the sowing of meadow species into newly abandoned land and how long do the effect of initial sowing persist, how is affected the set of natural colonizers, which includes both the weed species and also the later successional species arriving naturally into the zone. One of the main questions concerning succession is to which extent the trajectory may be predictable or not. What will be the consequence of the different succession pathways for ecosystem processes, such as productivity and resource utilization, as well as species composition of both above and belowground communities? What will be the subsequent effects of feed back to vegetation development through initial manipulation of vegetation after land abandonment? And, finally, how general may results be when obtained in specific conditions? Our hypothesis is that an increase in the initial plant species diversity at the start of secondary succession enhances the amount of biomass produced and consequently stimulates the soil microbial biomass and the abundance of soil invertebrates. It has been suggested that changes in plant species diversity affect several ecosystem processes, such as primary productivity, nutrient retention and vegetation dynamics. A positive impact of species diversity on plant productivity has been explained by the complementarity of resource use among plant species or their functional groups.

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“…The contribution of grasses is known to increase as a result of sowing and temporal development when managing grassland communities [21]. The influence of functional group traits on productivity has been reviewed by Díaz and Cabido [22] who found a high number of field studies rather to be correlated to functional group traits than to species diversity.…”

Section: Aboveground Biomass Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Experimental Sowing on Agroforestry Ecosystem Primary Production during Recovery from Agricultural Abandonment in a Semi-Arid Region of Central Western Spain

Alvarez-Díaz¹,

Santa-Regina²,

Santa‐Regina³

2017

Forest Ecology and Conservation

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We present a study of plant species diversity manipulation on abandoned arable fields and show that most diversity effects can be explained by a successional shift from annuals to perennial plant species. We tested the hypothesis that plant mixtures consisted of mid-successional plant species that were expected to occur on the site following secondary succession, and an increase in the initial plant species diversity at the beginning of secondary succession improves the amount of biomass produced. The main aim was to compare the aboveground biomass for the whole plant community and for different functional groups, using 7 years of field data at abandoned arable land in a semi-arid region of Central Western Spain. Significant differences were established for the treatment-year interaction, analysing the perennial-annual species ratio (P:A) in the HD and LD of sowing treatments. The differences were established at the start of the experiment, when the sown species were more effective in the HD-sowing treatment. There was a negative relationship among the productivity and mean richness of the natural colonization (NC) and the analysed sowing treatments (HD and LD). The coefficient of determination of this relationship was significant (R2 = 0.307, F(1, 13) = 5.75, P = 0. 032).

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Resource competition and suppression of plants colonizing early successional old fields

Cited by 37 publications

References 36 publications

No interaction between competition and herbivory in limiting introduced Cirsium vulgare rosette growth and reproduction

No interaction between competition and herbivory in limiting introduced Cirsium vulgare rosette growth and reproduction

Restoration of Biodiversity and Ecosystem

Effects of Experimental Sowing on Agroforestry Ecosystem Primary Production during Recovery from Agricultural Abandonment in a Semi-Arid Region of Central Western Spain

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