The interplay of stress and mowing disturbance for the intensity and importance of plant interactions in dry calcareous grasslands

Maalouf, Jean‐Paul; Bagousse‐Pinguet, Yoann Le; Marchand, Lilian; Touzard, Blaise; Michalet, Richard

doi:10.1093/aob/mcs152

Cited by 62 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…; Maalouf et al. ). Some studies have tried to minimize the problem of multiple independent environmental variables by focusing on systems where the dominant environmental gradients run approximately parallel (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Outcomes of biotic interactions are dependent on multiple environmental variables

Mod

Roux

Luoto

2014

J Vegetation Science

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Question: Can variation in the outcome of biotic interactions in relation to environmental severity be more accurately predicted when considering multiple stress and/or disturbance variables?Location: Arctic-alpine tundra in Kilpisjärvi, North-Finland. Methods:To test the impact of including multiple environmental variables in analyses of the outcomes of biotic interactions, we modelled reproductive effort and cover of 17 arctic-alpine species as a function of Empetrum nigrum ssp. hermaphroditum cover, geomorphological disturbance and soil moisture with statistical interactions of the explanatory variables included. We implemented a best-subset approach using generalised linear models (GLM) and selected the best model for each species based on Akaike's information criteria (AIC).Results: For the majority of species, models including multiple environmental variables were selected as best. Reproductive effort depended on one or both environmental variables for all species and 14 species were additionally influenced by Empetrum, with the impact of Empetrum varying with abiotic conditions in all but one of those species. Moreover, the 3-way interaction of three explanatory variables was included in the best-fit models for six species. The impact of Empetrum on species cover showed a similar pattern, with 11 species affected by Empetrum and its statistical interactions with one or both abiotic variables. Conclusions

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…; Maalouf et al. ; Schöb et al. ), explicit consideration of several abiotic variables may offer improved understanding of the factors determining spatio‐temporal variation in the outcome of species interactions, particularly in habitats characterized by multiple key environmental variables.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Outcomes of biotic interactions are dependent on multiple environmental variables

Mod

Roux

Luoto

2014

J Vegetation Science

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“…Therefore, understanding the relationships between rainfall fluctuation and species interactions in arid regions will provide information that can be used to predict the responses of vegetation to future rainfall changes (Soliveres et al 2013). Many previous studies that have investigated the effects of water regimes on plant-plant interactions have often selected different locations along drought gradients (Armas et al 2011, Granda et al 2012, Kidron and Gutschick 2013, Ziffer-Berger et al 2014 or used varying water levels in controlled environments (Maalouf et al 2012, Gao et al 2014, Grant et al 2014, Rysavy et al 2014, Castanho et al 2015. However, few reports have addressed the balance between competition and facilitation along drought gradients from the same community for multiple growing seasons (but see Tielbörger and Kadmon 2000, Abdallah and Chaieb 2012, Metz and Tielbörger 2016, O'Brien et al 2017.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme drought stress shifts net facilitation to neutral interactions between shrubs and sub‐canopy plants in an arid desert

Zhang

Zhao

Zhou

et al. 2017

Oikos

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The stress gradient hypothesis (SGH) predicts that the importance or intensity of competition and facilitation will change inversely along abiotic stress gradients. It was originally postulated that increasing environmental stress can induce a monotonic increase in facilitation. However, more recent models predicted that the relationship between severity and interaction exhibits a hump-shaped pattern, in which positive interactions prevail under moderate stress but decline at the extreme ends of stress gradients. In the present study, we conducted a field experiment along a temporal rainfall gradient for five consecutive years, in order to investigate interactions in a shrub-herbaceous plant community at the southern edge of the Badain Jaran Desert, and, more specifically, investigated the effects of Calligonum mongolicum, a dominant shrub species, on both abiotic environmental variables and the performance of sub-canopy plant species. We found that shrubs can improve sub-canopy water regimes, soil properties, plant biomass, density, cover, and richness and, more importantly, that the positive effect of shrubs on sub-canopy soil moisture during the summer diminishes as rainfall decreases, a pattern that partly explains the collapse of the positive interaction between shrubs and their understory plants. These results provide empirical evidence that the positive effect of shrubs on understory plant communities in extreme arid environments may decline and become neutral with increasing drought stress.

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“…However, the few field studies that tested the predictions of the SGH for both intensity and importance show different patterns of variation along environmental gradients (e.g. Gaucherand et al 2006;McGeoch 2010, but see Armas et al 2011;Maalouf et al 2012).…”

Section: Electronic Supplementary Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other studies have found that, at the stressful end of the gradient, the intensity of the positive net interaction reaches an asymptote (Kawai and Tokeshi 2007;le Roux and McGeoch 2010) or may wane and become neutral (Forey et al 2010;Maalouf et al 2012) or even negative (de Bello et al 2011;Koyama and Tsuyuzaki 2013). Some authors have proposed that the decrease in the net interaction most likely occurs because facilitators are less successful in ameliorating stress levels under very severe conditions, while competition for resources may decrease, remain constant or even increase with stress (Michalet et al 2006;Maestre et al 2009).…”

Section: Watering Treatmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does extreme environmental severity promote plant facilitation? An experimental field test in a subtropical coastal dune

Castanho

Oliveira²,

Prado³

2015

Oecologia

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The stress gradient hypothesis (SGH) postulates how the balance between plant competition and facilitation shifts along environmental gradients. Early formulations of the SGH predicted that facilitation should increase monotonically with stress. However, a recent theoretical refinement of the SGH postulates stronger facilitation under moderate stress, followed by a decreasing role of facilitation in the most severe environments. We conducted field experiments along the most severe part of a coastal dune gradient in southeast Brazil to test the effect of stress on the intensity and importance of the net interactions between two tree species. First, we compared the performance of distinct life stages of Ternstroemia brasiliensis in the presence and absence of Guapira opposita adults along a beach-to-inland gradient, a gradient of environmental severity. To test the effect of one stress factor in particular, we also manipulated water availability, a limiting resource due to the sandy soils. At the most severe part of the coastal gradient (i.e. closest to the seashore), both intensity and importance of the interaction between G. opposita and T. brasiliensis were negatively related to stress, with a pattern consistent across distinct life stages of the target species. However, the sign of the net interaction depended on the life stage of the target species. Our results provide empirical evidence that the role of facilitation tends to wane, leading to neutral or even negative net interactions between species as stress reaches its maximum, as predicted by the recent refinements of the SGH.

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The interplay of stress and mowing disturbance for the intensity and importance of plant interactions in dry calcareous grasslands

Cited by 62 publications

References 64 publications

Outcomes of biotic interactions are dependent on multiple environmental variables

Outcomes of biotic interactions are dependent on multiple environmental variables

Extreme drought stress shifts net facilitation to neutral interactions between shrubs and sub‐canopy plants in an arid desert

Does extreme environmental severity promote plant facilitation? An experimental field test in a subtropical coastal dune

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