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22,710 results for “Plants for planting”
Spatiophylogenetic modelling of extinction risk reveals evolutionary distinctiveness and brief flowering period as threats in a hotspot plant genus
Comparative models used to predict species threat status can help to identify diagnostic features of species at risk. Such models often combine variables measured at the species level with spatial variables, causing multiple statistical challenges, including phylogenetic and spatial non-independence. We present a novel Bayesian approach for modelling threat status that simultaneously deals with both forms of non-independence and estimates their relative contribution, and we apply the approach to modelling threat status in the Australian plant genus Hakea. We find that after phylogenetic and spatial effects are accounted for, species with greater evolutionary distinctiveness and a shorter annual flowering period are more likely to be threatened. The model allows us to combine information on evolutionary history, species biology, and spatial data, to calculate latent extinction risk (potential for non-threatened species to become threatened), estimate the most important drivers of risk for individual species, and map spatial patterns in the effects of different predictors on extinction risk. This could be of value for proactive conservation decision-making based on the early identification of species and regions of potential conservation concern.
Historical biogeography of Vochysiaceae reveals an unexpected perspective of plant evolution in the Neotropics
<p>PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Despite the fast pace of exploration of the patterns and processes influencing Neotropical plant hyperdiversity, taxa explored are mostly from large groups that are widely distributed, morphologically diverse or economically important. Vochysiaceae is an example of an undersampled taxon, providing an excellent system for investigating Neotropical biogeography. We present a phylogenomic-based hypothesis of species relationships in Vochysiaceae to investigate its evolutionary history through space and time.</p> <p>METHODS: We inferred a phylogeny for 122 species from Vochysiaceae and seven other families of Myrtales. Fossils from four myrtalean families were used to estimate the divergence times within Vochysiaceae. Historical biogeography was estimated using ancestral range probabilities and stochastic mapping.</p> <p>KEY RESULTS: Monophyly of all genera was supported except Qualea, which was split by Ruizterania into two clades. Vochysiaceae originated roughly 100 million years ago (Mya), splitting into an Afrotropical and a Neotropical lineage ca. 50 Mya, and its ancestral range is in the area currently occupied by the Cerrado.</p> <p>CONCLUSIONS: The most recent common ancestor of Vochysiaceae + Myrtaceae had a West Gondwanan distribution, supporting a South American + African ancestral range of Vochysiaceae. On a global scale, geographic range reduction was the principal biogeographical event. At a finer scale, initial range reduction was also important and the Cerrado region was the most ancestral area with multiple colonization events to the Amazon, Central America and the Atlantic Forest. Colonization events occurred from open areas to forest vegetation providing an unusual finding regarding evolution of plants in the Neotropics.</p>
3D photogrammetric reconstructions of individual chickpea plants
<p>3D point clouds and meshed models of individual chickpea plants were reconstructed using photogrammetry. This dataset serves as a companion to the article “Open source 3D phenotyping of chickpea plant architecture across plant development” uploaded as a preprint to <em>BioRxiv</em> (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.08.288530">https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.08.288530</a>).</p> <p><strong>Description of the dataset</strong></p> <p>Individual chickpea plants were imaged using a low-cost, automated turntable and camera set up. Dense point clouds were generated in <a href="http://ccwu.me/vsfm/">VisualSFM</a>, these point clouds were cleaned (denoised and non-plant points removed), scaled and then meshed using a ball-pivoting algorithm. More information on the imaging and reconstruction workflow can be found in our <em>BioRxiv</em> preprint (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.08.288530">https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.08.288530</a>). Scaled, clean point clouds and meshed models are provided in this dataset. All files are in the .PLY format and can be viewed using most 3D imaging software packages, including <a href="https://github.com/cnr-isti-vclab/meshlab">Meshlab</a>.</p> <p>Files are named using the following convention:<br> "GENOTYPE_PLANTIDNUMBER_GROUNDTRUTHINGORWEEKS_POINTCLOUDORMESHED"<br> Where:<br> GENOTYPE is the chickpea genotype.<br> PLANTIDNUMBER is the unique identifier for each plant.<br> GROUNDTRUTHINGORWEEKS refers to whether the plant was used for validation against ground truthing measurements or if growth was tracked after germination.<br> POINTCLOUDORMESHED refers to if the .ply file is a dense point cloud or a meshed 3D model.</p> <p><strong>Plant material</strong></p> <p>Three commercial Australian chickpea cultivars (Genesis Kalkee, PBA Hattrick and PBA Slasher) were grown in pots in a glasshouse and were imaged once per week for five weeks after germination. Three genotypes selected from local and international sources (ICC5878, SonSla and PUSA76) were grown in pots outdoors and were imaged once at five weeks post germination.</p>
Fast and furious: Early differences in growth rate drive short-term plant dominance and exclusion under eutrophication
<p>1. The reduction of plant diversity following eutrophication threatens many ecosystems worldwide. Yet, the mechanisms by which species are lost following nutrient enrichment are still not completely understood, nor are the details of when such mechanisms act during the growing season, which hampers understanding and the development of mitigation strategies.</p> <p>2. Using a common garden competition experiment, we found that early-season differences in growth rates among five perennial grass species measured in monoculture predicted short-term competitive dominance in pairwise combinations and that the proportion of variance explained was particularly greater under a fertilisation treatment.</p> <p>3. We also examined the role of early-season growth rate in determining the outcome of competition along an experimental nutrient gradient in an alpine meadow. Early differences in growth rate between species predicted short-term competitive dominance under both ambient and fertilized conditions and competitive exclusion under fertilized conditions.</p> <p>4. The results of these two studies suggests that plant species growing faster during the early stage of the growing season gain a competitive advantage over species that initially grow more slowly, and that this advantage is magnified under fertilisation. This finding is consistent with the theory of asymmetric competition for light in which fast-growing species can intercept incident light and hence outcompete and exclude slower-growing (and hence shorter) species. We predict that the current chronic nutrient inputs into many terrestrial ecosystems worldwide will reduce plant diversity and maintain a low biodiversity state by continuously favouring fast-growing species. Biodiversity management strategies should focus on controlling nutrient inputs and reducing the growth of fast-growing species early in the season.</p>
Data and code from "A dimmer shade of pale: revealing the faint signature of local assembly processes on the structure of strongly filtered plant communities"
<p>Trait-based ecology suggests that abiotic filtering is the main mechanism structuring the regional species pool in different subsets of habitat-specific species. At more local spatial scales, other ecological processes may add on giving rise to complex patterns of functional diversity (FD). Understanding how assembly processes operating on the habitat-specific species pools produce the locally observed plant assemblages is an ongoing challenge. Here, we evaluated the importance of different processes to community assembly in an alpine fellfield, assessing its effects on local plant trait FD. Using classical randomization tests and linear mixed models, we compared the observed FD with expectations from three null models that hierarchically incorporate additional assembly constraints: stochastic null models (random assembly), independence null models (each species responding individual and independently to abiotic environment), and co-occurrence null models (species responding to environmental variation and to the presence of other species). We sampled species composition in 115 quadrats across 24 locations in the central Pyrenees (Spain) that differed in soil conditions, solar radiation and elevation. Overall, the classical randomization tests were unable to find differences between the observed and expected functional patterns, suggesting that the strong abiotic filters that sort out the flora of extreme regional environments blur any signal of other local processes. However, our approach based on linear mixed models revealed the signature of different ecological processes. In the case of seed mass and leaf thickness, observed FD significantly deviated from the expectations of the stochastic model, suggesting that fine-scale abiotic filtering and facilitation can be behind these patterns. Our study highlights how the hierarchical incorporation of ecological additional constraints may shed light on the dim signal left by local assembly processes in alpine environments.</p>
Data from: Urbanization and plant invasion alter the structure of litter microarthropod communities
<p>Anthropogenic activity underpins the creation of urban ecosystems, often with introduced or invasive species playing a large role in structuring ecological communities. While the effects of urbanization on charismatic taxa such as birds, bees or butterflies have received much attention, the impacts on small and inconspicuous organisms remain poorly understood.</p> <p>Here, we assess how the community structure of leaf litter-inhabiting microarthropods in city parks varies along an urbanization gradient in Toronto, Canada. At each park, we established paired forest understory plots which were either dominated by native vegetation or dog-strangling vine (<em>Vincetoxicum rossicum</em>), an invasive species that is spreading throughout northeastern North America and abundant in urban areas. We compared microarthropod richness, abundance, and diversity in ecological traits between invaded and non-invaded plots as well as compositional dissimilarities among plots across the urbanization gradient.</p> <p>We recorded 123 genera and found: i) there was a negative effect of urbanization on microarthropod richness and abundance but only in invaded plots; ii) richness and abundance increased continuously with urbanization in non-invaded plots, but peaked at intermediate urbanization levels in invaded plots; and iii) there was significant turnover with increasing urbanization, with distinct communities represented in highly urbanized areas compared to less urbanized areas, regardless of whether invaded. We also found litter microarthropod richness and abundance increased with soil ammonium and decreased with nitrate. These trends were especially strong for fungivorous microarthropods, however there was no relationship between soil nutrients and urbanization or invasion.</p> <p>Urbanization and biological invasion drive biodiversity change, and there is a need to disentangle these effects on ecological communities and related ecosystem processes. We show microarthropod communities change with urbanization, with the effects of invasion most prominent in non-urban areas. Here, there is high richness and abundance but low ecological trait diversity, possibly because certain feeding traits are excluded and others overrepresented.</p> <p>Understanding of urban ecological systems must include knowledge of the microarthropods that interact widely across food webs, form distinct communities in highly urban areas, and drive many of the important ecological functions upon which people in cities depend.</p>
Short-term resistance that persists: Rapidly induced silicon anti-herbivore defence affects carbon-based plant defences
<p><b>1. </b>Silicon (Si) is known to alleviate diverse biotic and abiotic stresses including insect herbivory.<b> </b>Si accumulation in plants, notably the Poaceae, can be induced through stimulation of the jasmonic acid (JA) pathway (associated with chewing herbivores). Nevertheless, the temporal dynamics of Si accumulation as a defence response and its consequential effects on carbon-based defences (e.g. phenolics), particularly in the short-term, remain unclear.</p> <p><b>2. </b>The model grass <i>Brachypodium distachyon</i> was grown in a hydroponic solution where half the plants were supplemented with 2 mM potassium silicate and half had no Si supplied. Plants were treated with methyl jasmonate (MeJA) as a form of standardised simulated herbivory. We measured Si accumulation, the phytohormones JA and salicylic acid (SA), and carbon-based defences over 24 hours to determine the temporal dynamics of Si accumulation and the interplay between Si, simulated herbivory and plant defence machinery.</p> <p><b>3. </b>MeJA-induced Si accumulation occurred as early as 6 hours after treatment via increased JA concentrations. Si supplementation decreased SA concentrations, which could have implications on additional downstream defences. We show a trade-off between Si and phenolics in untreated plants, but this relationship was weakened upon MeJA treatment. Further, this trade-off did not apply to phenolic precursor compounds such as phenylalanine.</p> <p><span><b>4. </b>We provide evidence for rapidly induced Si accumulation associated with herbivory, and that increased Si accumulation impacts on phytohormones and carbon-based defences over a 24-hour period. Additionally, herbivory modifies the relationship between Si- and carbon-based defences. Thus, in addition to its well-documented role as a long-term defence against herbivores, we demonstrate that, over short-term temporal scales, Si accumulation responds to herbivore signals and impacts on plant defence machinery. </span></p>
Data from: Trait matching and phenological overlap increase the spatio-temporal stability and functionality of plant-pollinator interactions
<p>Morphology and phenology influence plant-pollinator network structure, but whether they generate more stable pairwise interactions with higher pollination success is unknown. Here we evaluate the importance of morphological trait matching, phenological overlap and specialisation for the spatio-temporal stability (measured as variability) of plant-pollinator interactions and for pollination success, while controlling for species abundance. To this end, we combined a six-year plant-pollinator interaction dataset, with information on species traits, phenologies, specialisation, abundance and pollination success, into structural equation models. Interactions among abundant plants and pollinators with well-matched traits and phenologies formed the stable and functional backbone of the pollination network, whereas poorly-matched interactions were variable in time and had lower pollination success. We conclude that phenological overlap could be more useful for predicting changes in species interactions than species abundances, and that non-random extinction of species with well-matched traits could decrease the stability of interactions within communities and reduce their functioning.</p>
Genetic structures across a biogeographical barrier reflect dispersal potential of four Southeast Asian mangrove plant species
Aim Biogeographic barriers restrict the movement of individuals, resulting in population divergence, genetic differentiation, endemism and speciation. Yet, some barriers demonstrate unequal effect across species depending on species dispersal, which manifests in varying genetic structure. We test the hypotheses that the genetic structure of four coastal mangrove species would reflect differences in dispersal potential across the Malay Peninsula, a major biogeographic barrier in the Indo-West Pacific region. Location Twelve sites from the east and west coasts of the Malay Peninsula. Taxon Mangrove trees Avicennia alba, Sonneratia alba, Bruguiera gymnorhiza, and Rhizhophora mucronata. Methods For each species, we characterized genetic structure and gene flow using seven to 12 species-specific nuclear microsatellite markers. We tested for east-west genetic differentiation across the peninsula, a stepping-stone migration pattern, and assessed the proportion of recent dispersal and direction of historical migration along the Malacca Strait. Results Significant east-west genetic differentiation across the peninsula was observed in A. alba, S. alba and B. gymnorhiza, and the effect was most pronounced for the two species with lower dispersal potential (A. alba, S. alba). In contrast, the two species with higher dispersal potential (B. gymnorhiza and R. mucronata) exhibited much higher proportion of recent inter-population migration along the Malacca Strait. The signature of historical colonization from refugia in the Andaman Sea (north-to-south migration along the Malacca Strait) predominated for A. alba and S. alba. Historical south-north migration predominated for R. mucronata and B. gymnorhiza. Main conclusions This study is the first to implicate dispersal potential as a causal factor of varying mangrove species genetic structure across a biogeographic barrier. The Malay Peninsula functions as a filter to gene flow rather than a barrier. The genetic structure in mangrove species with a higher dispersal potential is more congruent with contemporary gene flow while that of species with a lower dispersal potential reflects historical processes.Our findings hint at the role of dispersal potential as a predictor of gene flow in mangroves.
Phylogenetic restriction of plant invasion in drought-stressed environments: implications for insect-pollinated plant communities in water-limited ecosystems
<p><span><strong>Background</strong>: Plant-pollinator community diversity has been found to decrease under conditions of drought stress, however research into the temporal dimensions of this phenomenon remains limited. In this study, we investigated the effect of seasonal drought on the temporal niche dynamics of entomophilous flowering plants in a water-limited ecosystem. We hypothesized that closely related native and exotic plants would tend to share similar life history, and that peak flowering events would therefore coincide with phylogenetic clustering in plant communities based on expected phenological responses of plant functional types to limitations in soil moisture availability.</span></p> <p><span><strong>Location</strong>:<b> </b>Galiano Island, British Columbia, Canada</span></p> <p><span><strong>Methods</strong>:<b> </b>Combining methods from pollinator research and phylogenetic community ecology, we tested the influence of environmental filtering over plant community phenology across gradients of landscape disturbance and soil moisture. Floral resource availability and community structure were quantified by counts of flowering shoots. We constructed a robust phylogeny to analyze spatial and temporal variation in phylogenetic patterns across the landscape, testing the significance of the observed patterns against a randomly generated community phylogeny. Phylogenetic metrics were then regressed against factors of disturbance and soil moisture availability. </span></p> <p><span><strong>Results</strong>:<b> </b>Critical seasonal fluctuations in floral resources coincided with significant phylogenetic clustering in plant communities, with decreasing plant diversity observed under conditions of increasing drought stress. Exotic plant species in the Asteraceae became increasingly pervasive across the landscape, occupying a late season temporal niche in drought-stressed environments.</span></p> <p><span><strong>Main conclusion</strong>:<b> </b>Results suggest that environmental filtering is the dominant assembly process structuring the temporal niche of plant communities in this water-limited ecosystem. Based on these results, and trends seen elsewhere, the overall diversity of plant-pollinator communities may be expected to decline with the increasing drought stress predicted under future climate scenarios.</span></p>
Data from: Shading enhances plant species richness and diversity on an extensive green roof
<p>Green roofs can promote biodiversity in urban areas. The extent to which green roofs stimulate plant diversity can depend on roof characteristics such as roof age, substrate depth and shading. We exploratively studied the vegetation on a Dutch green roof in 50 permanent plots (1 m<sup>2</sup>) over eight years (2012–2019) following roof construction. Plots were situated either on low substrate depth (6 cm light-weight extensive substrate) or high substrate depth (6 cm light-weight extensive substrate topped with 14 cm native soil) and differed in the amount of shading received from a higher building floor. Increased substrate depth and shading additively increased plant species richness and plant diversity, with high shaded plots supporting on average 6.4 more plant species than low unshaded plots. Shading likely acts via reducing drought stress, whereas increasing substrate depth with native soil may also enhance plant diversity via addition of nutrients and native seeds. The vegetation composition on the roof was dynamic and changed over the years. Sedum acre was initially dominant but disappeared within the first years, whereas Sedum kamtschaticum increased and became dominant in the last years. Trifolium arvense was the most abundant forb species and was especially dominant three years after roof construction. We conclude that increased substrate depth and shading can promote plant species richness and diversity and recommend that both aspects are considered when green roofs are designed. Shading can be achieved by a stepped building architecture and by placing structures on the roof itself, such as solar panels on standards.</p>
Below- and aboveground traits explain local abundance, and regional, continental and global occurrence frequencies of grassland plants
<p>1. Plants vary widely in how common or rare they are, but whether commonness of species is associated with functional traits is still debated. This might partly be because commonness can be measured at different spatial scales, and because most studies focus solely on aboveground functional traits.</p> <p>2. We measured five root traits and seed mass on 241 Central European grassland species, and extracted their specific leaf area, height, mycorrhizal status and bud-bank size from databases. Then we tested if trait values are associated with commonness at seven spatial scales, ranging from abundance in 16-m² grassland plots, via regional and European-wide occurrence frequencies, to worldwide naturalization success.</p> <p>3. At every spatial scale, commonness was associated with at least three traits. The traits explained the greatest proportions of variance for abundance in grassland plots (42%) and naturalization success (41%), and the least for occurrence frequencies in Europe and the Mediterranean (2%). Low root tissue density characterized common species at every scale, whereas other traits showed directional changes depending on the scale. We also found that many of the effects had significant non-linear effects, in most cases with the highest commonness-metric value at intermediate trait values. Across scales, belowground traits explained overall more variance in species commonness (19.4%) than aboveground traits (12.6%).</p> <p>4. The changes we found in the relationships between traits and commonness, when going from one spatial scale to another, could at least partly explain the maintenance of trait variation in nature. Most importantly, our study shows that within grasslands, belowground traits are at least as important as aboveground traits for species commonness. Therefore, belowground traits should be more frequently considered in studies on plant functional ecology.</p>
Plant-animal interactions between carnivorous plants, sheet-web spiders, and ground-running spiders as guild predators in a wet meadow community
<p>Plant-animal interactions are diverse and wide-spread shaping ecology, evolution and biodiversity of most ecological communities. Carnivorous plants are unusual in that they can be simultaneously engaged with animals in multiple mutualistic and antagonistic interactions including reversed plant-animal interactions where they are the predator. Competition with animals is a potential antagonistic plant-animal interaction unique to carnivorous plants when they and animal predators consume the same prey.</p> <p>The goal of this field study was to test the hypothesis that under natural conditions, sundews and spiders are predators consuming the same prey thus creating an environment where interkingdom competition can occur.</p> <p>Over 12 months, we collected data on 15 dates in the only protected Highland Rim Wet Meadow Ecosystem in Kentucky where sundews, sheet-web spiders and ground-running spiders co-exist. One each sampling day, we attempted to locate fifteen sites with: 1) both sheet-web spiders and sundews; 2) sundews only; and where neither occurred. Sticky traps were set at each of these sites to determine prey (springtails) activity-density. Ground-running spiders were collected on sampling days. DNA extraction was performed on all spiders to determine which individuals had eaten springtails and comparing this to the density of sundews where the spiders were captured. </p> <p>Sundews and spiders consumed springtails. Springtail activity-densities were lower the higher the density of sundews. Both sheet-web and ground-running spiders were found less often where sundew densities were high. Sheet-web size was smaller where sundews densities were high. </p> <p>The results of this study suggest that asymmetrical exploitative competition occurs between sundews and spiders. Sundews appear to have a greater negative impact on spiders, where spiders probably have little impact on sundews. In this example of interkingdom competition where the asymmetry should be most extreme, amensalism where one competitor experiences no cost of interaction may be occurring. </p>
Autopolyploidy-driven range expansion of a temperate-originated plant to pan-tropic under global change
<p>Angiosperms are believed to have emerged initially in the tropics and expanded their distribution range polewards through diverse mechanisms, for example polyploidization-driven cold-tolerance evolution. Reversed expansion from temperate to pantropic climate through a polyploidization-driven shift in heat-tolerance remains largely unknown. Here, we found autopolyploidy in relation to the global expansion of <i>Solidago canadensis</i> from its temperate-climate native range in North American to hot-summer climate in an introduced range. Our cytogeographical study of 2062 accessions from 471 locations worldwide demonstrates that ploidy levels correlates negatively with latitude and positively with average temperature. An isotherm-dependent shift of the climate niches at the threshold of 20-24ºC between geo-cytotypes can be attributed mainly to autopolyploidy-driven differentiation of heat tolerance; only polyploids and not diploids are able to complete sexual reproduction, germinate and grow in the hot-summer climate of low latitudes. Ploidy-dependent fertility appears to play a key role in the hot-summer introduced range in the northern hemisphere through both pre-adaptation and rapid post-introduction adaptive evolution of delayed flowering and improved heat-tolerance during embryo development. MaxEnt model predicts continuous expansion of this weed under global change. These results provide new insights into the mechanisms governing autopolyploidy-driven backward range-expansion of plant species from temperate origins.</p>
Data from: Integration and harmonization of trait data from plant individuals across heterogeneous sources
<p>Trait data represent the basis for ecological and evolutionary research and have relevance for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem management and earth system modelling. The collection and mobilization of trait data has strongly increased over the last decade, but many trait databases still provide only species-level, aggregated trait values (e.g. ranges, means) and lack the direct observations on which those data are based. Thus, the vast majority of trait data measured directly from individuals remains hidden and highly heterogeneous, impeding their discoverability, semantic interoperability, digital accessibility and (re-)use. Here, we integrate quantitative measurements of verbatim trait information from plant individuals (e.g. lengths, widths, counts and angles of stems, leaves, fruits and inflorescence parts) from multiple sources such as field observations and herbarium collections. We develop a workflow to harmonize heterogeneous trait measurements (e.g. trait names and their values and units) as well as additional information related to taxonomy, measurement or fact and occurrence. This data integration and harmonization builds on vocabularies and terminology from existing metadata standards and ontologies such as the Ecological Trait-data Standard (ETS), the Darwin Core (DwC), the Thesaurus Of Plant characteristics (TOP) and the Plant Trait Ontology (TO). A metadata form filled out by data providers enables the automated integration of trait information from heterogeneous datasets. We illustrate our tools with data from palms (family Arecaceae), a globally distributed (pantropical), diverse plant family that is considered a good model system for understanding the ecology and evolution of tropical rainforests. We mobilize nearly 140,000 individual palm trait measurements in an interoperable format, identify semantic gaps in existing plant trait terminology and provide suggestions for the future development of a thesaurus of plant characteristics. Our work thereby promotes the semantic integration of plant trait data in a machine-readable way and shows how large amounts of small trait data sets and their metadata can be integrated into standardized data products.</p>
Spatial mapping of root systems reveals diverse strategies of soil exploration and resource contest in grassland plants
<p>1. When foraging and competing for belowground resources, plants have to coordinate the behaviour of thousands of root tips in a manner similar to that of eusocial animal colonies. While well described in animals, we know little about the spatial behaviour of plants, particularly at the level of individual roots.</p> <p>2. Here, we employed statistical methods previously used to describe animal ranging behaviour to examine root system overlap and the efficiency of root positioning in eight grassland species grown in monocultures and mixtures along a gradient of neighbour densities.</p> <p>3. Species varied widely in their ability to distribute roots efficiently, with the majority of species showing significant root aggregation at very fine spatial scales. Extensive root system overlap was observed in species mixtures, indicating a lack of territoriality at the level of whole root systems. However, with increasing density of competitors, several species withdrew roots from the periphery of foraging ranges and increased intraplant root aggregation in the remaining area, which may indicate consolidation of foraging areas under competitive pressure.</p> <p>4. Several species exhibited responses consistent with resource contest in species mixtures where encounters with competitors' roots triggered increased root aggregation at the expense of foraging efficiency. Such responses only occurred in mixtures of species with comparable competitive abilities but were absent in asymmetric species combinations.</p> <p>5. Synthesis. Combining fine-scale measurement of plant root distributions with spatial statistics yields new insights into plant behavioural strategies with significant potential to impact resource foraging efficiency and productivity.</p>
Data from: Multiple facets of diversity effects on plant productivity: species richness, functional diversity, species identity and intraspecific competition
<p>1. Deciphering the mechanisms that drive variation in biomass production across plant communities of contrasting species composition and diversity is a main challenge of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research. Niche complementarity and selection effect have been widely investigated to address biodiversity-productivity relationships. However, the overlooking of the specific role played by key species have limited so far our capacity to comprehensively assess the relative importance of other potential drivers of biodiversity effects.</p> <p>2. Here, we conducted a grassland diversity-productivity experiment to test how four potential facets of biodiversity effects, namely species richness, functional diversity, species identity and the relaxation of intraspecific competition, account for variations in above and root biomass production.</p> <p>3. We grew six plant species in monoculture, as well as in every combinations of two, three and six species. Plant density was kept constant across the richness gradient but we additionally grew each species in half-density monoculture to estimate the strength of intraspecific competition for each studied species. We characterized eight functional traits, including root traits, related to nutrient and light acquisition and computed both the functional dissimilarity and the community weighted mean (CWM) of each trait. We further partitioned aboveground biodiversity effect into complementarity and selection effects.</p> <p>4. We observed strong positive biodiversity effects on both aboveground and root biomass as well as strong positive complementarity effect. These arose largely from the presence of a particular species (<i>Plantago lanceolata</i>) and from CWM trait values more than from a higher functional dissimilarity in plant mixtures. <i>P. lanceolata</i> displayed the highest intraspecific competition, which was strongly relaxed in species mixtures. By contrast, the presence of <i>Sanguisorba minor</i> negatively affected the productivity of plant mixtures, this species suffering more from interspecific than intraspecific competition.</p> <p>5. This study provides strong evidences that the search for key species is critical to understand the role of species diversity on ecosystem functioning and demonstrates the major role that the balance between intraspecific and interspecific competition plays in biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships. Developing more integrative approaches in community and ecosystem ecology can offer opportunities to better understand the role that species diversity plays on ecosystem functioning.</p>
The effects of age on the demography of a perennial plant depend on interactions with size and environment
<p>Age-dependence of the demographic rates survival, fecundity and individual growth is a fundamental aspect of population biological theory. Knowledge about plant ageing can also be important for conservation and agriculture as it will improve the accuracy of population viability assessments and long-term performance assessments in perennial crops. Recent studies show age effects on demographic rates for several plant species, yet much remains to be learned about the patterns and mechanisms of plant ageing, particularly about how age effects interact with the environment and with plant size.</p> <p>We collected age-and-size-based demographic data, as well as individual-based environmental data, for the perennial herb Plantago lanceolata in Denmark over three annual transitions (four years). We combined frequent field monitoring of carefully mapped individuals with the underused technique of root histology to determine age of herbaceous plants. We used generalized linear mixed effects models to assess how age, soil properties, and year influenced survival, growth, and reproduction.</p> <p>Our results show no strong evidence of consistent age declines, rather, we found mostly positive effects of age on vital rates. For all vital rates, i.e. survival, growth, flowering, and reproductive output, age effects also differed significantly among years. Additionally, we detected an interactive effect of age and size in the growth model. Size, and temporal and spatial environmental variation also affected vital rates independently of age.</p> <p>Synthesis: Our study shows that age-dependence of demographic rates can depend both on individual size and environmental variation. These results suggest that a consideration of potential age-interactions may improve the accuracy of comparative studies of ageing and population projections. Moreover, this study shows that much is still unknown about how plant ageing can be affected by the environment, and illustrates how age determination using herb chronology provides an opportunity to increase our knowledge about ageing in herbaceous plants.</p>
Data from: Translocation of an arctic seashore plant reveals signs of maladaptation to altered climatic conditions
<p>Ongoing anthropogenic climate change alters the local climatic conditions to which species may be adapted. Information on species' climatic requirements and their intraspecific variation is necessary for predicting the effects of climate change on biodiversity. We used a climatic gradient to test whether populations of two allopatric varieties of an arctic seashore herb (<i>Primula nutans</i> ssp. <i>finmarchica</i>) show adaptation to their local climates and how a future warmer climate may affect them. Our experimental set-up combined a reciprocal translocation within the distribution range of the species with an experiment testing the performance of the sampled populations in warmer climatic conditions south of their range. We monitored survival, size, and flowering over four growing seasons as measures of performance and, thus, proxies of fitness. We found that both varieties performed better in experimental gardens towards the north. Interestingly, highest up in the north, the southern variety outperformed the northern one. Supported by weather data, this suggests that the climatic optima of both varieties have moved at least partly outside their current range. Further warming would make the current environments of both varieties even less suitable. We conclude that <i>Primula nutans</i> ssp. <i>finmarchica</i> is already suffering from adaptational lag due to climate change, and that further warming may increase this maladaptation, especially for the northern variety. The study also highlights that it is not sufficient to run only reciprocal translocation experiments. Climate change is already shifting the optimum conditions for many species and adaptation needs also to be tested outside the current range of the focal taxon in order to include both historic conditions and future conditions.</p>
Data from: A meta-analysis of plant interaction networks reveals competitive hierarchies as well as facilitation and intransitivity
The extent to which competitive interactions and niche differentiation structure communities has been highly controversial. To quantify evidence for key features of plant community structure, I recharacterized published data from interaction experiments as networks of competitive and facilitative interactions. I measured the network structure of 31 woody and herbaceous communities, including the intensity, distribution, and diversity of interactions at the species-pair and community level to determine the generality of competition, winner-loser relationships, and unequal interaction allocation. I developed novel methodology using meta-analysis to incorporate interaction uncertainty into estimates of structural metrics among independent networks. Plant communities were competitive, but intraspecific interactions were sometimes more intense than interspecific interactions. On the whole, interactions were imbalanced and communities were transitive. However, facilitation, balanced interactions, and intransitivity were common in individual communities. Synthesizing network metrics using meta-analysis is an original approach with which to generalize community structure in a systematic way.
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
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.