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151 results for “plant community diversity”
Flower color and flowering phenology mediate plant-pollinator interaction assembly in a diverse co-flowering community
<p>Uncovering the role of competition and facilitation in community assembly is central for developing a predictive understanding of the forces that organize biodiversity. Standard trait-based approaches however rely on detection of only one assembly mechanism (competition or facilitation) along a single trait even though pollinator-mediated plant-plant interactions can be structured along multiple phenotypic, phenological and ecological traits. We evaluated plant species distribution along multiple phenotypic and ecological traits (flower color, flowering time, pollinator sharing) and described an entire co-flowering community as a set of modules with unique patterns of assembly, to test predictions regarding the relative contribution of competition and facilitation to the assembly of a diverse co-flowering community. We show a modular pattern of flower color assembly. Flower color modules differ in their spectral reflectance patterns including color hue and saturation. Within modules, however, species are differentially assembled along phenological and ecological traits (pollinator sharing) depending on the main pollinator group visiting plant species within each module. Results suggest different trait assembly patterns within individual trait-modules in the same co-flowering community and that different trait-patterns can result from the same type of ecological interaction. This study reveals empirical evidence of community assembly along multiple axes of trait differentiation and raises caution when interpreting assembly patterns based on a single trait.</p>
Data and Code for "No general support of functional diversity enhancing resilience across terrestrial plant communities"
<p>The data and code provided here is to support the study "No general support of functional diversity enhancing resilience across terrestrial plant communities" </p> <p>This repository contains the following files:</p> <p> The code to reproduce main analysisi and graphs in R and HTML format</p> <ul> <li>RcodeNoGeneralSupport.R</li> <li>RcodeNoGeneralSupport.html</li> </ul> <p>The data to be used for the different analyses</p> <ul> <li>ResilienceFDIndices.csv</li> <li>ResilienceFDIndices-BiomassH.csv</li> <li>ResilienceFDIndices-BiomassW.csv</li> <li>ResilienceFDIndices-CompositionW.csv</li> <li>ResilienceFDIndices-Herbaceous.csv</li> <li>ResilienceFDIndices-woody.csv</li> <li>ResilienceSR.csv</li> <li>ResilienceSR-BiomassH.csv</li> <li>ResilienceSR-BiomassW.csv</li> <li>ResilienceSR-CompositionW.csv</li> <li>ResilienceSR-herbaceous.csv</li> <li>ResilienceSR-woody.csv</li> </ul> <p>The detailed information for each variable in each data set</p> <ul> <li>README.txt</li> </ul>
Ungulate herbivores promote beta diversity and drive stochastic plant community assembly by selective defoliation and trampling: From a four-year simulation experiment
<p>Ungulate herbivores shape grassland plant communities at multiple scales, ultimately affecting ecosystem function. However, ungulates have complex effects on grasslands, including defoliation, trampling, excreta return, and their interactions. Moreover, the effects of ungulate density on grasslands are regulated by these three mechanisms. Nevertheless, how these three mechanisms affect biodiversity at multiple scales and community assembly remains poorly understood.</p> <p>Here, we conducted a 4-year novel field experiment to disentangle the effects of defoliation, trampling, and excreta return by ungulates on plant community assembly in a temperate grassland in Inner Mongolia, China. This experiment set two different scenarios: moderate ungulate density (Moderate, characterised by selective defoliation and moderate trampling) and high ungulate density (Intense, characterised by non-selective defoliation and heavy trampling), including different combinations of defoliation, trampling, and excreta return in each scenario.</p> <p>We found that defoliation and trampling increased stochasticity in community assembly and promoted alpha and beta diversity under both scenarios. Specifically, defoliation promoted the coexistence of species with multiple resource acquisition strategies (higher functional trait diversity) by reducing interspecific competition; trampling tended to facilitate random species colonisation. Conversely, excreta return favoured grasses, promoting deterministic assembly and impacting species coexistence. Notably, selective defoliation in the moderate scenario led to a dominance of stochastic processes during community assembly, whereas non-selective defoliation still did not change the dominance of deterministic processes. Further, communities subject to selective defoliation were insensitive to changes in soil properties caused by trampling and excreta return, maintaining a high-level beta diversity and the stochastic of community assembly.</p> <p><em>Synthesis:</em></p> <p>Our study provides important insights into the mechanisms by which ungulate herbivores influence plant community assembly, suggesting that defoliation and trampling have the potential to drive stochastic processes, while excreta return plays the opposite role. Our study also suggests that selective foraging by ungulates acts as stronger stochastic forces during community assembly compared to non-selective defoliation. These results imply that considering ungulate feeding preferences and foraging behaviour in grassland management will help prevent biodiversity loss and biotic homogenisation.</p>
Beyond species richness and community composition: Using plant functional diversity to measure restoration success in jarrah forest
<p>Aim: The importance of restoring ecosystem functions to native systems that have been degraded, damaged or destroyed is increasingly recognised. Yet few studies have measured the effect of restoration efforts on ecosystem functioning or the functional diversity (FD) that underpins it. Here we assessed change in FD of restored assemblages one to 25 years after the onset of post-mine restoration.</p> <p>Location: Northern Jarrah (<i>Eucalyptus marginata</i> Donn ex Sm.) Forest bioregion of south-western Australia.</p> <p>Methods: Functional richness, evenness, divergence and dispersion were derived from five plant functional traits relevant to community reassembly. Effects of three explanatory variables (i.e., age, year restoration was initiated, and time since fire) on six response variables (i.e., four FD indices, species richness, and compositional similarity to nearby reference forest) were analysed using linear mixed models for a dataset with repeated measures of plots through time (n= 810 plots), and linear models for a sub-set of one-time measures of different aged assemblages (i.e., space-for-time approach; n= 490 plots).</p> <p>Results: Functional evenness and functional dispersion increased with age, while functional divergence and functional richness decreased with age. Functional dispersion increased with time since fire, while functional richness decreased with time since fire. Species richness decreased with age, but at 25-years, species richness was comparable to that observed in reference forest. In contrast, similarity showed no relationship with age of restored forest, and at 25-years, similarity of restored forest to reference was low compared with similarity of reference forest to itself. Three of four FD indices had not reached those of reference jarrah forest 25-years after restoration had been initiated.</p> <p>Conclusions: Reassembly of FD suggests importance of environmental filtering and high functional redundancy. A longer time frame may be needed to assess FD of restored assemblages, and in the meantime, species richness is not an adequate surrogate of FD.</p>
Individual-based networks reveal the highly skewed interactions of a frugivore mutualist with individual plants in a diverse community
<p>While plant-animal interactions occur fundamentally at the individual level, the bulk of research examining the mechanisms that drive interaction patterns has focused on the species or population level. In seed-dispersal mutualisms between frugivores and plants, little is known about the role of space and individual-level variation among plants in structuring patterns of frugivore foraging and, thus, seed dispersal in a plant community. Here we use an animal perspective to examine how space and variation between individual plants affect movement and visitation by frugivores foraging on individual fruiting plants. To do this, we used a spatially explicit network approach informed by observations of the movement and foraging of a frugivorous lemur species (Eulemur rubriventer) amongst individual plants in a diverse plant community in Madagascar. The resulting hierarchical networks, in which a few individual plants received the bulk of the interactions, demonstrated how a generalist frugivore species could act as an individual-plant specialist within a plant community. The few individual plants that dominated interactions with the lemurs shaped the modular spatial structure of frugivory interactions in the community and facilitated visitation to near neighbors. This interaction structure was primarily driven by extrinsic factors, as lemur movements among plants were significantly influenced by the individual plant's spatial position and the species richness of fruiting plants in its immediate neighborhood. Individual plants in central spatial locations, with a rich fruiting neighborhood and large fruit crops, received the most visits. The observed drastic inequality in the interactions of a generalist frugivore within a highly diverse plant community highlights the importance of considering individual-level variation for essential ecosystem processes, such as seed dispersal.</p>
Heterospecific pollen deposition is positively associated with reproductive success in a diverse hummingbird-pollinated plant community
<p>Heterospecific pollen deposition (HPD) is ubiquitous across plant communities, especially for generalized species which use a diversity of pollinators, and may have negative effects on plant reproduction. However, it is unclear whether temporal changes in the co-flowering community result in changes in HPD patterns. Moreover, community-level studies are required to understand which factors influence HPD and how the reproduction of different species is affected. We investigated the temporal variation of HPD, its relationship with level of specialization on pollinators and floral phenotypic specialization, and its association with reproductive success (pollen limitation and fruit set) in 31 hummingbird-pollinated plant species in a tropical Campo Rupestre. We found seasonality in HPD, with species flowering in the dry season having greater diversity of heterospecific pollen on stigmas and a higher frequency of stigmas containing heterospecific pollen, compared to the rainy season. Stigmas of ecologically generalized species had more heterospecific pollen, while the relationship for ecologically specialized species depended on floral phenotype. Surprisingly, and in contrast to theory, we found a positive relationship between HPD and reproductive success. Our results indicate benefits of generalization and facilitation, in which sharing pollinators brings greater reproductive success via increased conspecific pollen deposition, even if it incurs more HPD. We demonstrated how assessing HPD at a community-level can contribute to understanding the ecological causes and functional consequences of pollinator sharing.</p>
Patterns of frequency and density dependence are highly variable in diverse annual flowering plant communities
<p>Applications of ecological theory to natural communities often assume that competitive, negative density-dependent processes are the only type of interaction important for diversity maintenance. Recent advances suggest that positive interactions within trophic levels (e.g. plant-plant) may also affect plant coexistence. Though positive plant-plant interactions theoretically might result in positive or nonmonotonic frequency or density dependence (FD/DD), less is known about how commonly these patterns occur, or which ecological processes might result in such patterns in natural plant communities. In this study, we test for signals of variable frequency and density dependence in annual flowering plant communities in Western Australia and search for evidence that interactions among plants during flowering might induce positive or nonmonotonic FD/DD in flowering plants. Using four common annual wildflower species, we ask if plant fecundity exhibits positive or nonmonotonic FD/DD and if pollinator-mediated plant-plant interactions during flowering change patterns of FD/DD relative to pollinator-independent plant interactions. Three species exhibited nonmonotonic (hump-shaped) density dependence, and only one species experienced strictly negative density dependence. Each species exhibited a different pattern of frequency dependence (positive, negative, weakly nonmonotonic, and no detectable frequency dependence). Pollinator-mediated plant-plant interactions during flowering induced both nonmonotonic density dependence and negative frequency dependence in one species. Importantly, the extent of variation in FD/DD observed in our study brings into question the dominance of negative density and frequency dependence in theory, suggesting instead that demographic responses of plants to their communities fall along a continuum of possible density- and frequency-dependent patterns.</p>
The data table of eleven invasive species in Hungary and Romania: Invasive species' cover, invasive species' traits, basic characteristics, trait composition, functional diversity indices and soil parameters of recipient plant communities
<p>We studied 11 widespread herbaceous invasive alien species of East-Central Europe and their 16 impact metrics (resident plant communities' ecological characteristics, trait composition, functional diversity, and soil parameters) by sampling invaded and similar, uninvaded sites (space-for-time substitution method). Our aim was to (1) investigate the detailed ecological impacts of invasive plants on native plant communities; (2) explore the type of cover-impact relationships across impact metrics and their consistency across species; (3) study whether the cover-impact relationship depends on functional traits of invasive species. We present the data table with the 11 invasive species: the status of the sites (invaded, uninvaded), the cover of invasive species at plot level, the invasive species traits (lifespan, height, SLA, seed mass, clonal spread, flowering duration), community characteristics (species richness and diversity, native vegetation cover and bare ground cover at plot level), trait composition of native plant communities (native vegetation height, CWM height, CWM SLA, CWM seed mass, CWM clonal spread), functional diversity (functional richness, functional evenness, functional divergence, functional distance, RaoQ) and soil properties (N, P, organic C, pH).</p>
Data from: Positive plant diversity effects on soil microbial drought resistance are linked to variation in labile carbon and microbial community structure
<p><span>Biodiversity loss and drought are substantially altering both above-and belowground terrestrial ecosystem functioning, but mechanistic understanding of plant diversity effects on the drought resistance of soil microbial biomass remains limited. </span></p> <p><span>We designed a mesocosm experiment to examine drought resistance of soil microbial biomass along a plant species richness gradient (five plant species richness levels based on old-field communities). We calculated resistance of microbial biomass to drought and recorded key belowground properties which may influence microbial resistance to drought (i.e., microbial diversity, microbial community structure, soil carbon stocks and root biomass). </span></p> <p><span>Plant species richness had a positive effect on microbial resistance to drought. Variation in microbial resistance to drought was linked to properties of the fungal community in ambient soil (Shannon diversity, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal richness and abundance) but not soil bacterial diversity. Moreover, microbial resistance to drought increased with increasing root biomass and dissolved organic carbon recorded under ambient conditions. </span></p> <p><span>These results highlight the importance of plant diversity for microbial biomass stability in our old-field study system with implications for biogeochemical cycling, and suggest that indirect effects of plant species richness on labile soil carbon and soil fungi may drive resistance of soil microbial biomass to drought. </span></p>
Data for: Increases in functional diversity of mountain plant communities is mainly driven by species turnover under climate change
<p><span>Warming in mountain regions is projected to be three times faster than the global average. Pronounced climate change will likely lead to species reshuffling in mountain plant communities and consequently change ecosystem resilience and functioning. Yet, little is known about</span><span> the role of inter- versus intraspecific changes of plant traits and their consequences for functional richness and evenness of mountain plant communities under climate change. </span></p> <p><span>We performed a downslope translocation experiment of intact plant-soil mesocosms from an alpine pasture and a subalpine grassland in the Swiss and Austrian Alps to simulate an abrupt shift in climate and removal of dispersal barriers. Translocated plant communities experienced warmer and dryer climatic conditions. </span><span>We found a considerable shift from resource conservative to resource acquisitive leaf-economy in the two climate change scenarios. However, shifts in leaf-economy were mainly attributable to species turnover, namely colonization by novel lowland species with trait expressions for a wider range of resource use. We also found an increase in vegetative height of the warmed and drought-affected alpine plant community, while trait plasticity to warming and drought was limited to few graminoid species of the subalpine plant community. </span><span>Our results highlight the contrast between the strong competitive potential of novel lowland species in quickly occupying available niche space and native species' lack of both the intraspecific trait variability and the plant functional trait expressions needed to increase functional richness under warming and drought. This is particularly important for the trailing range of many mountain species (i.e. subalpine zone) where upward moving lowland species are becoming more abundant and abiotic climate stressors are likely to become more frequent in the near future. </span><span>Our study emphasizes mountain plant communities' vulnerability to novel climates and biotic interactions under climate change and highlights graminoid species as potential winners of a warmer and dryer future.</span></p>
Data from: Soil nutrient heterogeneity alters productivity and diversity of experimental plant communities under multiple global change factors
<p>Plant communities in nature are often challenged by multiple global change factors (GCFs) and also ubiquitously encountered with soil nutrient heterogeneity. So far, however, we know little about the interactive effect of multiple GCFs and soil nutrient heterogeneity on plant communities.</p> <p>We conducted an outdoor mesocosm experiment in which a plant community was either grown in heterogeneous soils consisting of high- and low-nutrient patches, or in homogeneous soils where the same amount of nutrients was evenly distributed. These plant communities were exposed to none (control), single, or a combination of two or four GCFs (i.e., drought, nitrogen deposition, microplastic and cadmium).</p> <p>Biomass of the plant community exposed to drought and nitrogen deposition were greater in heterogeneous than in homogeneous soils, but evenness of the plant community exposed to microplastics was lower. Increasing the number of GCFs increased community biomass more in heterogeneous than in homogeneous soils, but it generally reduced community evenness, independent of soil nutrient heterogeneity. These contrasting responses were related to changing competitive hierarchies and root foraging responses under different treatments.</p> <p>Our results suggest that soil nutrient heterogeneity can alter community productivity and diversity via changing competitive interactions of the component species, depending on both the identity and the number of GCFs acting on the community. These results have important implications for the maintenance of ecosystem functions and services under rapid and complex ongoing global changes.</p>
Artificial light at night (ALAN) decreases plant diversity and performance in experimental grassland communities – Data on species biomass and traits
<p>Artificial light at night (ALAN) affects many areas of the world and is increasing globally. To date, there has been limited and inconsistent evidence regarding the consequences of ALAN on plant communities as well as the fitness of their constituent species. ALAN could be beneficial for plants as they need light as an energy source, but they also need darkness for regeneration and growth. We created model communities composed of 16 plant species sown, exposed to a gradient of ALAN ranging from 'moonlight only' to conditions like situations typically found directly underneath a streetlamp. We measured plant community composition and its production (biomass), as well as functional traits of three plant species from different functional groups (grasses, herbs, legumes) in two separate harvests. We found that biomass was reduced by 33% in the highest ALAN treatment compared to the control, Shannon diversity decreased by 43% and Evenness by 34% in the first harvest. Some species failed to establish in the second harvest. Specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content and leaf hairiness responded to ALAN. These responses suggest that plant communities will be sensitive to increasing ALAN, and they flag a need for plant conservation activities that consider impending ALAN scenarios.</p>
Data from: Revealing biogeographic patterns in genetic diversity of native and invasive plants and their association with soil community diversity in the Chinese coast
<p><span>Within-species genetic diversity is shaped by multiple evolutionary forces within the confines of geography, and has cascading effects on the biodiversity of other taxa and levels. Invasive species are often initially limited in genetic diversity but still respond rapidly to their new range, possibly through 'pre-adapted' genotypes or multiple sources of genetic diversity, but little is known about how their genetic structure differs from that of native species and how it alters the genetic-species diversity relationship.</span><span> Here, we selected a widespread native species (<em>Phragmites australis</em>) and its co-occurring invasive competitor (<em>Spartina alterniflora</em>) as our model plant species. We investigated the genetic structure of <em>P. australis</em> using two chloroplast fragments and ten nuclear microsatellites in 13 populations along the Chinese coastal wetlands. We discovered a distinct geographical differentiation, showing that the northern and southern populations harbored unique genotypes.</span><span> We also found a significant increase in genetic diversity (allelic richness and expected heterozygosity) from south to north. Combined with previous studies of <em>S. alterniflora</em>, </span><span>the Mantel tests revealed</span><span> a significant correlation of genetic distances between <em>P. australis </em>and<em> S. alterniflora</em> even when controlling for geographic distance,</span><span> suggesting that the invasive species <em>S. alterniflora</em> might exhibit a phylogeographic pattern similar to that of the native species to some extent. Furthermore, our results suggest that the <em>S. alterniflora </em>invasion has altered the relationship between the genetic diversity of the dominant native plant and the associated species richness of soil nematodes. The reason for the alteration of genetic-species diversity relationship might be that the biological invasion weakens the environmental impact on both levels of biodiversity. Our findings contribute to understanding the latitudinal patterns of intraspecific genetic diversity in widespread species. This work on the genetic diversity analysis of native species also provides significant implications for the invasion stage and ecological consequences of biological invasions.</span></p>
Ecological data from: Combining botanical collections and ecological data to better describe plant community diversity
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Data from: Differential effects of pollen nutritional quality on male and female reproductive success across plant species within a diverse co-flowering community
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Flower color and flowering phenology mediate plant-pollinator interaction assembly in a diverse co-flowering community
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Plant and frugivore species characteristics drive frugivore contributions to seed dispersal effectiveness in a hyper-diverse community
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Non-linear thresholds in the effects of island area on functional diversity in woody plant communities
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Beyond species richness and community composition: Using plant functional diversity to measure restoration success in jarrah forest
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Data from: Grass invasion and drought interact to alter the diversity and structure of native plant communities
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Allen Brain Atlas
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DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
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International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.