Rethinking plant community theory

Lortie, Christopher J.; Brooker, Rob W.; Choler, Philippe; Kikvidze, Zaal; Michalet, Richard; Pugnaire, Francisco I.; Callaway, Ragan M.

doi:10.1111/j.0030-1299.2004.13250.x

Cited by 506 publications

(479 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…In natural conditions, properties of plant communities such as composition and structure arise from the interaction of both coarse-and fine-scale filters (Dale, 1999;Lortie et al, 2004). On a fine scale, vegetation patterns are ruled by species size and growth pattern, as well as by the interactions among plant individuals.…”

Section: Emergent Properties: the "Pattern Of Spatial Occupancy"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitats on the grid: The spatial dimension does matter for red-listing

Gigante

Foggi

Venanzoni

et al. 2016

Journal for Nature Conservation

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a b s t r a c tBesides species Red Lists, recently, a variety of frameworks have been proposed for assessing higher levels of biological organisation, i.e. ecosystems, habitats, plant communities. Most of these protocols refer to 'plant species assemblages' or 'vegetation types' as proxies for ecosystems or habitats. Indeed, the habitat concept based on plant communities has acquired a central role as a key approach for biodiversity conservation above the species level. Plant communities, like every complex biological system, hold scaledependent 'emergent' properties which vary as a function of the scale of observation. With reference to red-listing, these scale-dependent properties have far-reaching consequences for both identification and classification, as well as for representation and evaluation, and become particularly challenging when dealing with criteria regarding decline in distribution or restricted distribution. The recent discussion on the red-listing protocols has evidenced several aspects that claim special efforts for a suitable use. In the present paper, starting with the analysis of some recently proposed protocols for the red-listing of habitats and ecosystems, we discuss and test some 'emergent' properties of species assemblages, providing cues for reflection. Based on a variety of theoretical models and scientific outcomes in literature from the last decades, we theorise that plant communities own some intrinsic, ecologically based and scale-dependent spatial features, which give rise to different types of pattern of spatial occupancy. We discuss a model where, in natural conditions, the possible patterns of spatial occupancy are referred to 3 basic types: areal, linear and point. This approach is here proposed as a tool to discriminate among different broad categories of plant community-based habitat types and optimise their assessment in the red-listing process. Starting from a homogeneous data set, the proposed case studies prove that the choice of the scale affects the comprehension of the habitats' occurrence, with a substantial relapse on the estimates of their distribution size. In particular, habitats with linear and point distribution, often naturally small in size and dispersed, are more susceptible to biased evaluation of their actual distribution and consequently of their threat status. The intrinsic spatial attributes of plant communities should not be neglected in a red-listing process and claim for a 'habitat-tailored' approach. The use of different gridcell sizes and thresholds for the three main patterns of spatial occupancy here proposed, might certainly avoid inaccurate statements.

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Section: Emergent Properties: the "Pattern Of Spatial Occupancy"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitats on the grid: The spatial dimension does matter for red-listing

Gigante

Foggi

Venanzoni

et al. 2016

Journal for Nature Conservation

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“…Earlier theories propose a continuum along which the assembling of species is determined by stochastic events (e.g. dispersal limitation) at large spatial scale (landscape, km 2 >), while at more local scale (m 2 -km 2 ) deterministic processes are ruling species assemblage (Lortie et al 2004;Gravel et al 2006). In dry semi-natural grassland in south-western Sweden, this pattern was effectively observed among a series of leaf and whole-plant traits comparing landscape scales with patch scales (de Bello et al 2013).…”

Section: Which Assembly Process For Which Conditions?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Grass strategies and grassland community responses to environmental drivers: a review

Pontes

Maire

Schellberg

et al. 2015

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

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Grassland covers about one quarter of the Earth's land area and is currently estimated to contribute to the livelihoods of over 800 million people. Grassland provides ecosystem goods and services, mainly through the provisioning of milk and meat. Therefore, the proper use of grasslands will be essential for feeding the nine billion people that will inhabit planet Earth by 2050. In the context of a changing climate, we should better understand the interactions of environment, management and grass crop at individual, community and ecosystem levels. Functional ecology focuses on the roles and functions that species play in the community or ecosystem in which they occur. Functional ecology thus aims to understand how plant species adapt to environmental conditions and how management can alter this adaptation. Here, we review the latest advances in plant functional traits research and on species strategies to the main environmental factors occurring in grassland ecosystems: nutrient availability, grazing, cutting and shading. Functional ecology also provides a framework to better understand how species strategies interact with the species composition at the community level. Therefore, the literature on community assembling theories in relation to ecosystem processes most relevant to grassland management and services is also reviewed. Finally, future research questions and some new orientations for grassland experts are offered in order to meet the challenge of maintaining productivity and preservation of these semi-natural environments in the face of global change.

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“…Neutral theory (6)(7)(8) suggested that species-specific differences are unimportant for certain community attributes, whereas niche theory outlines the importance of species characteristics and trade-offs (9,10). It is also clear that species-specific differences affect the spatial distribution of populations (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16). Surprisingly, although plant-plant interactions should play a major role in structuring tropical forests, the resulting spatial patterns in diversity have not been analyzed from the viewpoint of individual species.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

How individual species structure diversity in tropical forests

Wiegand

Gunatilleke²,

Gunatilleke³

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

115

265

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A persistent challenge in ecology is to explain the high diversity of tree species in tropical forests. Although the role of species characteristics in maintaining tree diversity in tropical forests has been the subject of theory and debate for decades, spatial patterns in local diversity have not been analyzed from the viewpoint of individual species. To measure scale-dependent local diversity structures around individual species, we propose individual speciesarea relationships (ISAR), a spatial statistic that marries common species-area relationships with Ripley's K to measure the expected ␣ diversity in circular neighborhoods with variable radius around an arbitrary individual of a target species. We use ISAR to investigate if and at which spatial scales individual species increase in tropical forests' local diversity (accumulators), decrease local diversity (repellers), or behave neutrally. Our analyses of data from Barro Colorado Island (Panama) and Sinharaja (Sri Lanka) reveal that individual species leave identifiable signatures on spatial diversity, but only on small spatial scales. Most species showed neutral behavior outside neighborhoods of 20 m. At short scales (<20 m), we observed, depending on the forest type, two strongly different roles of species: diversity repellers dominated at Barro Colorado Island and accumulators at Sinharaja. Nevertheless, we find that the two tropical forests lacked any key species structuring species diversity at larger scales, suggesting that ''balanced'' species-species interactions may be a characteristic of these speciesrich forests. We anticipate our analysis method will be a starting point for more powerful investigations of spatial structures in diversity to promote a better understanding of biodiversity in tropical forests.biodiversity ͉ spatial patterns ͉ spatial statistic ͉ species-area relationship S ince the establishment of large permanent sampling plots where all stems Ͼ1 cm in diameter at breast height (dbh) are identified, measured, and mapped (1, 2), substantial progress has been made in explaining the high local diversity of tree species in tropical forests; however, ecologists are still far from having a definitive answer. Several competing hypotheses on processes promoting species coexistence have been developed and tested, but these efforts have yielded contrasting results (3-5). Neutral theory (6-8) suggested that species-specific differences are unimportant for certain community attributes, whereas niche theory outlines the importance of species characteristics and trade-offs (9, 10). It is also clear that species-specific differences affect the spatial distribution of populations (11-16). Surprisingly, although plant-plant interactions should play a major role in structuring tropical forests, the resulting spatial patterns in diversity have not been analyzed from the viewpoint of individual species. However, strong differences in species traits and in species interactions should create clearly identifiable nonrandom spatial structures in diversity...

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Rethinking plant community theory

Cited by 506 publications

References 41 publications

Habitats on the grid: The spatial dimension does matter for red-listing

Habitats on the grid: The spatial dimension does matter for red-listing

Grass strategies and grassland community responses to environmental drivers: a review

How individual species structure diversity in tropical forests

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