Species‐richness and soil phosphorus in plant communities in coastal New South Wales

Abstract

Species-richness (recorded as number of species in 16 m-' quadrats), in more than 60 coastal sites developed over various substrata, exhibited a significant non-linear relationship with soil total phosphorus extracted from associated soil samples. Although the general form of this relationship is not incompatible with a resource cotnpetition model, the significant proportion of the total variance accounted for by the species-richness/phosphorus relationship suggests that a more detailed examination of phosphorus use at a community level will be profitable.

Plant mineral nutrition in ancient landscapes: high plant species diversity on infertile soils is linked to functional diversity for nutritional strategies

“…3a). A similar dependence of plant distribution and species diversity on soil P levels has been found before (Adam et al 1989;Beadle 1962Beadle , 1966Huston 1980). Preliminary analysis of plant alpha diversity and mineral nutrition strategies in south-western Australia suggests that a relatively high proportion of species are non-mycorrhizal (Brundrett 2009;Lambers et al 2008b).…”

Vegetation and environmental patterns on soils derived from Hawkesbury Sandstone and Narrabeen substrata in Ku‐ring‐gai Chase National Park, New South Wales

“…Previous studies in the central coastal region of New South Wales have found correlations between vegetation and nutrients, particularly phosphorus (Beadle 1953(Beadle , 1954McColl & Humphreys 1967;Adam et al 1989) and nitrogen (Hannon 1956;McColl & Humphreys 1967); however, few studies have recognized complex environmental gradients involving a number of environmental factors. Complex environmental gradients have been found in many other areas in Australia (e.g.…”

“…Rice and Westoby (1983) also postulated that soil nutrients could be one of the main determinants of patterns in species richness in sclerophyll communities of eastem Australia. Adam et al, (1989) showed a strong relationship between soil phosphorus and species richness in coastal plant communities from a range of substrata in eastem New South Wales. This has led to the general acceptance of a 'nutrient' hypothesis regarding the distribution of plant species.…”

“…In terms of community-environment relations, the vegetation of this region has been studied with respect to soil nutrients (e.g. Beadle 1953Beadle ,1954Hannon 1956;Adam et al, 1989) and fire (e.g. Siddiqi et al, 1976); however, few studies have examined the combined effects of multiple environmental factors.…”

Regional and local variation in insect herbivory, vegetation and soils of eucalypt associations in contrasted landscape positions along a climatic gradient

“…For example, although Specht (1988b) showed a positive relationship between site productivity and species richness on a regional scale, both theory (Grime 1979) and observational studies (e.g. Adam et al, 1989) suggest that relationships at more local scales can be variable.…”