Spatial variation in soil microbial processes as a result of woody encroachment depends on shrub size in tallgrass prairie

Connell, R. Kent; O’Connor, Robert T.; Nippert, Jesse B.; Blair, John M.

doi:10.1007/s11104-020-04813-9

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…These species are common in woodland savannas and forests and the most abundant dead species is common in open Cerrado (Bueno et al, 2018). Furthermore, our results revealed similar patterns when compared to more arid systems where changing in species composition during encroachment is caused by few dominant species (Throop & Archer, 2007; Zhou et al, 2017; Connell et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Temporal changes in the dominance of tree functional traits, but no changes in species diversity during woody plant encroachment in a Brazilian savanna

Raymundo

Lehmann

Oliveira‐Neto

et al. 2023

J Vegetation Science

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Questions: Woody encroachment in savannas has been associated with changing taxonomic composition and ecosystem function. Interestingly, there is little understanding of how encroachment impacts plant functional diversity and how those changes relate to plant demography, a crucial mediator between taxonomic composition and ecosystem function. Location: Southeastern Brazil. Methods: Using a landscape scale fire suppression experiment in a diverse Brazilian savanna, we quantify how change in species composition over seven years impacted vegetative and reproductive tree functional diversity as determined by new recruits, dead and surviving trees. Results: Over seven years, tree above‐ground biomass increased by 15%, while total species richness did not change. Despite minor changes, species composition remained overall similar (82%), with few species contributing significantly to plot dissimilarity over time. There were small changes in vegetative traits, where the community‐weighted mean increased in maximum tree height (↑ 2.1%) and specific leaf area (↑ 5.3%), and decreased in wood density (↓ 1.3%) and bark thickness (↓ 9.4%). Changes in reproductive traits were larger than in vegetative traits, with an increase in the prevalence of monoecy (↑ 32.6%), dioecy (↑ 44.2%), large seeds (↑ 20.3%), animal‐mediated seed dispersal (↑ 4.9%) and pollination by very small insects (↑ 45.5%), and a decrease in the prevalence of hermaphroditism (↓ 9%), small seeds (6.8%) and pollination by small insects (12.5%). The overall decrease in bark thickness and increase in monoecy and dioecy were mainly driven by characters of the new recruits, while the overall increase in specific leaf area (SLA) and decrease in small seeds appeared largely determined by the loss of trees possessing those traits. Conclusions: Encroachment leads to changes that are likely increasing ecosystem vulnerability to fire and drought. Further, the compositional changes observed appear to drive marked change in reproductive traits, indicating increasing dependence on animals for dispersal and reproduction. Understanding post‐hoc encroachment impacts in an era of widespread pervasive encroachment is fundamental to reconciling ecosystem functions such as nutrient cycling and pollination services as there is a loss of species with open ecosystem life‐history strategies. Among savannas, there remains an urgent need to understand relationships between woody cover and ecosystem function to determine thresholds in woody cover promoting resilient savanna ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Temporal changes in the dominance of tree functional traits, but no changes in species diversity during woody plant encroachment in a Brazilian savanna

Raymundo

Lehmann

Oliveira‐Neto

et al. 2023

J Vegetation Science

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“…1 ). Discrete shrubs can grow extremely large and have been reported to cover up to 830 m 2 ( Connell et al 2021 ). Ramets can grow between 2 and 6 m tall and expand laterally with younger and shorter ramets on the periphery of the clone compared with those in the centre.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-temporal differences in leaf physiology are associated with fire, not drought, in a clonally integrated shrub

et al. 2021

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In highly disturbed environments, clonality facilitates plant survival via resprouting after disturbance, resource sharing among interconnected stems, and vegetative reproduction. These traits likely contribute to the encroachment of deep-rooted clonal shrubs in tallgrass prairie. Clonal shrubs have access to deep soil water and are typically thought of as relatively insensitive to environmental variability. However, how leaf physiological traits differ among stems within individual clonal shrubs (hereafter “intra-clonal”) in response to extreme environmental variation (i.e., drought or fire) is unclear. Accounting for intra-clonal differences among stems in response to disturbance is needed to more accurately parameterize models that predict the effects of shrub encroachment on ecosystem processes. We assessed intra-clonal leaf level physiology of the most dominant encroaching shrub in Kansas tallgrass prairie, Cornus drummondii, in response to precipitation and fire. We compared leaf gas exchange rates from the periphery to center within shrub clones during a wet (2015) and extremely dry (2018) year. We also compared leaf physiology between recently burned shrubs (resprouts) to unburned shrubs in 2018. Resprouts had higher gas exchange rates and leaf nitrogen content than unburned shrubs, suggesting increased rates of carbon gain can contribute to recovery after fire. In areas recently burned, resprouts had higher gas exchange rates in the center of the shrub than the periphery. In unburned areas, leaf physiology remained constant across the growing season within clonal shrubs (2015 and 2018). Results suggest single measurements within a shrub are likely sufficient to parameterize models to understand the effects of shrub encroachment on ecosystem carbon and water cycles, but model parameterization may require additional complexity in the context of fire.

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“…In August of 2019, we measured hydrolytic enzyme potential activities (Saiya et al, 2002;Sinsabaugh et al, 1999) as described in Zeglin et al (2013) and Connell et al (2021). Soil samples were sieved to remove plant roots, then frozen at 4°C until assays were conducted.…”

Section: Microbial Extracellular Enzyme Assaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Legacy Effects Shape Tallgrass Prairie Nitrogen Cycling

et al. 2022

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Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycles are strongly shaped by climate at local to global scales (Elrys et al., 2021;Piao et al., 2020), and future changes in precipitation will be a key determinant of ecosystem functioning under climate change (Quan et al., 2019). The size and timing of rainfall events have direct and immediate effects on plant and microbial physiological processes, such as photosynthesis and respiration, via changes in soil moisture (Savage et al., 2009). However, precipitation can also indirectly affect a multitude of ecosystem processes over longer time periods by exerting controls on the amount and quality of litter inputs (Ren et al., 2015), the release, transformation, and retention of nutrients (McCulley et al., 2009), and the protection and stabilization of soil C (Bai et al., 2020). These indirect effects of climate can affect ecosystem processes in ways that are not easily inferred from short-term responses to precipitation variability. Moreover, in ecosystems that are co-limited by water and nutrient availability, the effect of soil water availability on the processes that determine soil fertility and nutrient supply rates can feed back to alter the relationship between precipitation and ecosystem processes,

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Spatial variation in soil microbial processes as a result of woody encroachment depends on shrub size in tallgrass prairie

Cited by 10 publications

References 86 publications

Temporal changes in the dominance of tree functional traits, but no changes in species diversity during woody plant encroachment in a Brazilian savanna

Temporal changes in the dominance of tree functional traits, but no changes in species diversity during woody plant encroachment in a Brazilian savanna

Spatio-temporal differences in leaf physiology are associated with fire, not drought, in a clonally integrated shrub

Climate Legacy Effects Shape Tallgrass Prairie Nitrogen Cycling

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