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759 results for “Plant–plant interactions”
Magnitude and timing of resource pulses interact to affect plant invasion
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Data from: Warming-induced functional shifts in the decomposer community interact with plant community compositional shifts to impact litter decomposition
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Plant traits shape soil legacy effects on individual plant-insect interactions
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Data from: Comparative impacts of long-term trends in snowmelt and species interactions on plant population dynamics
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Species interactions and plant traits of dune grasses in a burial experiment
A multi-factorial greenhouse experiment of three common dune grasses (Ammophila breviligulata, Uniola paniculata, and Spartina patens) in different interspecific combinations was performed, using sand burial and salinity sea spray as abiotic stressors. Sand burial (25 cm) was applied once at the beginning of the study. Sea spray was applied three times per week. Morphological measurements (leaf elongation, maximum root length, biomass, leaf C, N and isotopes) were collected after 12 weeks.
Figure 3 in Ant-herbivore interactions in an extrafloral nectaried plant: are ants good plant guards against curculionid beetles?
Figure 3. Spatial segregation (mean ± SE) of Camponotus blandus and Anthonomus in Banisteriopsis malifolia. Ants (A) were more abundant on leaves (circles and dotted lines), while beetles (B) were concentrated on flowers (squares and continuous lines). p <0.0001 (Student's t-tests) indicates statistical significant differences.
A regional assessment of changes in plant-plant interactions along topography gradients in Tunisian sebkhas
<p><span>Facilitation among plants in dry ecosystems is crucial for diversity and ecosystem functioning and stability. However, the importance of facilitation in extremely stressful conditions is highly debated. We attempt to separate the effects of direct non-resource and resource stress factors on plant-plant interactions by assessing changes in facilitation and competition along salinity gradients at two contrasting levels of aridity. We selected eight saline depressions (hereafter sebkhas) in the wet and dry Mediterranean arid climate of North-Africa, from central Tunisia to the Libyan border 500 km south-eastward. In each sebkha, we transplanted at four positions along the salinity gradient induced by topography, both in open areas and below dominant shrubs, three target species with contrasting tolerances to salinity stress. Target plant survival, soil electrical conductivity and moisture were recorded before and after the dry summer season in all treatments. Shrubs decreased salinity and drought stresses in all treatments and facilitation was the dominant interaction. However, we found a strong collapse of facilitation along the salinity gradient, due to a dramatic mortality of the three target species both with and without neighbours above their threshold of salinity tolerance. Increasing aridity induced an earlier collapse of facilitation along the gradient. The three target species had contrasting responses to neighbours, with the least stress-tolerant species being facilitated and the two most stress-tolerant ones negatively affected by neighbours. Our study shows that disentangling resource and non-resource stresses along gradients and controlling for target species effects help understanding variation in plant-plant interactions under highly stressful conditions.</span></p>
Generalised host-plant feeding can hide sterol specialised foraging behaviours in bee-plant interactions
<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Host-plant selection is a key factor driving the ecology and evolution of insects. While the majority of phytophagous insects are highly host specific, generalist behaviour is quite widespread among bees and presumably involves physiological adaptations that remain largely unexplored. However floral visitation patterns suggest that generalist bees do not forage randomly on all available resources. While resource availability and accessibility as well as nectar composition have been widely explored, pollen chemistry could also have an impact on the range of suitable host-plants. This study focuses on particular pollen nutrients that cannot be synthesised de novo by insects but are key compounds of cell membranes and the precursor for moulting process: the sterols. We compared the sterol composition of pollen from the main host-plants of three generalist bees: <i>Anthophora plumipes</i>,<i>Colletes cunicularius</i>and <i>Osmia cornuta</i>, as well as one specialist bee <i>Andrena vaga</i>. We also analysed the sterols of their brood cell provisions, the tissues of larvae and non-emerged females to determine which sterols are used by the different species. Our results show that sterols are not used accordingly to foraging strategy: Both the specialist species <i>Andrena vaga</i>and the generalist species <i>Colletes cunicularius</i>might metabolise a rare C<sub>27</sub>sterol, while the two generalist species <i>Anthophora plumipes</i>and <i>Osmia</i><i>cornuta</i>might rather use a very common C<sub>28</sub>sterol. Our results suggest that shared sterolic compounds among plant species could facilitate the exploitation of multiple host-plants by <i>A. plumipes</i>and <i>O. cornuta</i>whereas the generalist <i>C. cunicularius</i>might be more constrained due to its physiological requirements of a more uncommon dietary sterol. Our findings suggest that a bee displaying a generalist foraging behaviour may sometimes hide a sterol-specialised species. This evidence challenges the hypothesis that all generalist free-living bee species are all able to develop on a wide range of different pollen types.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
Data from: Herbicides and herbivory interact to drive plant community and crop-tree establishment
Land management practices often directly alter vegetation structure and composition, but the degree to which ecological processes such as herbivory interact with management to influence biodiversity is less well understood. We hypothesized that large herbivores compound the effects of intensive forest management on early-seral plant communities and plantation establishment (i.e., tree survival and growth), and the degree of such effects is dependent on the intensity of management practices. We established 225 m2 wild ungulate (deer and elk) exclosures, nested within a manipulated gradient of management intensity (no-herbicide Control, Light herbicide, Moderate herbicide and Intensive herbicide treatments), replicated at the scale of whole harvest units (10-19 ha). Vegetation structure, composition and crop-tree responses to herbivory varied across the gradient of herbicide application during the first two years of stand establishment, with herbivory effects most evident at intermediate herbicide treatments. In the Moderate herbicide treatment – which approximates treatments applied to > 2.5 million hectares in Pacific Northwest U.S.A. – foraging by deer and elk resulted in simplified, low-cover plant communities more closely resembling the Intensive herbicide treatment. Herbivory further suppressed the growth of competing vegetation in the Light herbicide treatment, improving crop-tree survival, and providing early evidence of an ecosystem service. By changing community composition and vegetation structure, intensive forest management alters foraging selectivity and subsequent plant-herbivore interactions; initial shifts in early-seral communities are likely to influence understory plant communities and tree growth in later stages of forest development.
Data from: Weak olfaction increases seed scatter-hoarding by Siberian chipmunks: implication in shaping plant-animal interactions
Scatter-hoarding of seeds by animals plays an essential role in seed dispersal of plants and in shaping plant–animal interactions in forest ecosystems, but the function of scatter-hoarding behavior is still unclear. We hypothesize that weak olfactory cues between seeds and scatter-hoarding animals would increase scatter-hoarding. Using a rodent–plant system of Siberian chipmunks Tamias sibiricus and Korean pines Pinus koraiensis, we tested the effects on seed scatter-hoarding intensity by measuring and modifying the seed odor intensities and the abilities of the animals to detect seed odor. Siberian chipmunks seemed to scatter-hoard more seeds with weaker odor signals, and Siberian chipmunks with reduced olfactory ability scatter-hoarded more seeds, supporting our hypothesis. Our studies suggest that olfaction may have played an important role in the evolution of the strength of seed odor and scatter-hoarding behavior of animals, and in shaping plant–animal interactions.
Data from: Interactive effects of pasture management intensity, release from grazing and prescribed fire on forty subtropical wetland plant assemblages
Pasture management intensity, livestock grazing and prescribed fire are three widespread agricultural practices that affect small, isolated wetlands, but few studies have investigated their individual and interactive effects. Pasture management intensity refers to the degree of human alteration of grassland, ranging from intensively managed pastures planted with introduced forage, fertilizer/lime additions and artificial drainage to semi-natural pastures with mixed native and non-native vegetation, no fertilizer/lime additions and little or no artificial drainage. We examined individual and interactive effects of these three agricultural practices on individual, isolated wetlands using a replicated, full-factorial experiment on 40 entire wetlands in south Florida, USA. Wetlands were embedded in two pasture management intensities: intensively managed and semi-natural. After three years of treatment initiation, vegetation of wetlands released from grazing and unburned embedded in semi-natural pastures had significantly lower evenness and coefficient of conservatism scores compared to wetlands released from grazing and burned, grazed unburned wetlands and grazed burned wetlands in the same pasture management intensity. For wetlands embedded in intensively managed pastures, evenness and coefficient of conservatism scores did not differ among treatments. Release from grazing increased abundance of the native, weedy herb, Eupatorium capillifolium. Grazing interacted with prescribed fire to affect shrub abundance and non-native richness; relative abundance of shrubs and non-native richness were greater in wetlands released from grazing and burned and did not differ among burn treatments in grazed wetlands. Interactive effects, especially three-way interactions, were uncommon and not as important as differences between the two pasture management intensities. Synthesis and applications. Vegetation diversity and floristic quality of wetlands embedded in intensively managed pastures resisted common restoration management techniques such as release from grazing and prescribed fire, at least in the short term. In contrast, removing all top-down disturbances from wetlands embedded in semi-natural grasslands can negatively affect vegetation species diversity and floristic quality. Future studies should examine how intensity and seasonality of grazing and prescribed fire affect wetland vegetation, and track long-term responses to evaluate lag effects.
Data from: Spatial heterogeneity in the strength of plant-herbivore interactions under predation risk: the tale of bison foraging in wolf country
Spatial heterogeneity in the strength of trophic interactions is a fundamental property of food web spatial dynamics. The feeding effort of herbivores should reflect adaptive decisions that only become rewarding when foraging gains exceed 1) the metabolic costs, 2) the missed opportunity costs of not foraging elsewhere, and 3) the foraging costs of anti-predator behaviour. Two aspects of these costs remain largely unexplored: the link between the strength of plant-herbivore interactions and the spatial scale of food-quality assessment, and the predator-prey spatial game. We modeled the foraging effort of free-ranging plains bison (Bison bison bison) in winter, within a mosaic of discrete meadows. Spatial patterns of bison herbivory were largely driven by a search for high net energy gains and, to a lesser degree, by the spatial game with grey wolves (Canis lupus). Bison decreased local feeding effort with increasing metabolic and missed opportunity costs. Bison herbivory was most consistent with a broad-scale assessment of food patch quality, i.e., bison grazed more intensively in patches with a low missed opportunity cost relative to other patches available in the landscape. Bison and wolves had a higher probability of using the same meadows than expected randomly. This co-occurrence indicates wolves are ahead in the spatial game they play with bison. Wolves influenced bison foraging at fine scale, as bison tended to consume less biomass at each feeding station when in meadows where the risk of a wolf's arrival was relatively high. Also, bison left more high-quality vegetation in large than small meadows. This behavior does not maximize their energy intake rate, but is consistent with bison playing a shell game with wolves. Our assessment of bison foraging in a natural setting clarifies the complex nature of plant-herbivore interactions under predation risk, and reveals how spatial patterns in herbivory emerge from multi-scale landscape heterogeneity.
Data from: Selection mosaics differentiate Rhizobium–host plant interactions across different nitrogen environments
The nature and direction of coevolutionary interactions between species is expected to differentiate among distinct environments. Consequently, locally coevolved symbiotic traits would be well matched in similar environments, but mismatched elsewhere. In a classic mutualistic tradeoff, rhizobia provide nitrogen (N) to legume host plants in return for photosynthates. Despite earlier predictions, there is little evidence so far that spatial differences in soil N content mediate the coevolutionary outcome of the legume–Rhizobium mutualism. To test the existence of such selection mosaics, different genotypes of Vicia cracca and Rhizobium leguminosarum originating from spatially and environmentally highly differentiated sites were cross inoculated across different soil N regimes. In accordance with theoretical predictions, we found highly significant effects of genotype by genotype by environment (G× G × E) interactions, on both nodulation and plant growth, even when R. leguminosarum genotypes showed high genetic similarity. Our results show that the trajectory of the coevolutionary interactions between rhizobia and legumes is differentiated across different environments, and that selection mosaics may play an important role in shaping differences in the genetic composition of rhizobial populations.
Data from: Compatible and incompatible pathogen-plant interactions differentially affect plant volatile emissions and the attraction of parasitoid wasps
The effects of multiple insect attacks on herbivore-induced plant volatiles and carnivorous arthropods are increasingly studied. Phytopathogens also represent an important threat to plants, and plant defense strategies against pathogens and insects are strongly interconnected, yet the potential impact of pathogens on insect-induced volatiles has been largely overlooked, and degree of pathogenicity rarely considered. We investigated how pathogen challenge, with virulent and avirulent strains of Xanthomonas campestris either alone or with simultaneous Pieris brassicae caterpillar herbivory, affected the volatile emissions of Brassica nigra plants. The impact of these volatiles on the foraging behavior of Cotesia glomerata parasitoids was then assessed. Pathogens themselves induced volatiles that were highly attractive to parasitoids, and enhanced the attractiveness of host-infested plant volatiles. Chemical analyses revealed that virulent and avirulent strains differentially induced plant volatiles, with primarily sesquiterpene, homoterpene and green leaf volatile compounds contributing to the differences. Strong similarities were found in the blends induced by the virulent strain and caterpillar herbivory. Challenge by either virulent or avirulent pathogens has a significant impact on plant chemistry and its interactions with other community members, demonstrating the importance of integrating pathogen- and insect-based research to broaden our knowledge of plant defenses under conditions of increasing complexity.
Data from: Interacting livestock and fire may both threaten and increase viability of a fire-adapted Mediterranean carnivorous plant
1. Quantifying interactive effects of environmental drivers on population dynamics can be critical for a robust analysis of population viability. Fire regimes, among the most widespread disturbances driving population dynamics, are increasingly modified by and interact with human activities. However, viability of fire-adapted species is typically assessed overlooking disturbance interactions, potentially resulting in suboptimal management actions. 2. We investigated whether increasing human disturbances in fire-prone ecosystems may pose a threat or an opportunity to improve population viability, using demographic data of the carnivorous, post-fire recruiting plant Drosophyllum lusitanicum, endemic to heathlands in the southwestern Mediterranean Basin. We built integral projection models and simulated population dynamics under different combinations of two key disturbance types affecting populations: fire and livestock browsing and trampling. We used perturbation analyses to determine potential long-term consequences of maintaining fundamentally different disturbance types. 3. Despite most populations inhabiting browsed habitats, simulations showed a greater extinction risk in populations under high livestock pressure compared with ones under low or moderate pressures. Extinction risk decreased when fire return intervals shortened in populations under low or moderate livestock pressure; however, the opposite pattern emerged in heavily browsed populations, where short intervals between fires increased extinction. 4. Elasticity analyses showed that decreases in viability under frequent disturbance interactions (heavy browsing and frequent fire) may be explained by selection against seed dormancy in populations with frequent browsing and trampling. This may potentially cause populations to collapse when fires kill above-ground plants without populations being able to recover from a seed bank. 5. Synthesis and applications: Incorporating disturbance interactions can result in a different assessment of viability of a fire-adapted species than considering fire regimes alone. In Mediterranean ecosystems, fire management may be more effective when integrating moderate human activities. However, replacing fires by human disturbances, a currently widespread strategy in many fire-prone ecosystems, is not recommended since it may fundamentally alter population dynamics and selection pressures and decrease viability of fire-adapted species.
Data from: Desynchronizations in bee-plant interactions cause severe fitness losses in solitary bees
1. Global warming can disrupt mutualistic interactions between solitary bees and plants when increasing temperature differentially changes the timing of interacting partners. One possible scenario is for insect phenology to advance more rapidly than plant phenology. 2. However, empirical evidence for fitness consequences due to temporal mismatches is lacking for pollinators and it remains unknown if bees have developed strategies to mitigate fitness losses following temporal mismatches. 3. We tested the effect of temporal mismatches on the fitness of three spring-emerging solitary bee species, including one pollen specialist. Using flight cages, we simulated (i) a perfect synchronization (from a bee perspective): bees and flowers occur simultaneously, (ii) a mismatch of three days and (iii) a mismatch of six days, with bees occurring earlier than flowers in the latter two cases. 4. A mismatch of six days caused severe fitness losses in all three bee species, as few bees survived without flowers. Females showed strongly reduced activity and reproductive output compared to synchronized bees. Fitness consequences of a three day mismatch were species-specific. Both the early-spring species Osmia cornuta and the mid-spring species Osmia bicornis produced the same number of brood cells after a mismatch of three days as under perfect synchronization. However, O. cornuta decreased the number of female offspring, whereas O. bicornis spread the brood cells over fewer nests, which may increase offspring mortality e.g. due to parasitoids. The late-spring specialist Osmia brevicornis produced fewer brood cells even after a mismatch of three days. Additionally, our results suggest that fitness losses after temporal mismatches are higher during warm than cold springs, as the naturally occurring temperature variability revealed that warm temperatures during starvation decreased the survival rate of O. bicornis. 5. We conclude that short temporal mismatches can cause clear fitness losses in solitary bees. Although our results suggest that bees have evolved species-specific strategies to mitigate fitness losses after temporal mismatches, the bees were not able to completely compensate for impacts on their fitness after temporal mismatches with their food resources.
Data from: Mycorrhizal symbiosis increases the benefits of plant facilitative interactions
The diversity of pathways through which mycorrhizal fungi alter plant coexistence hinders the understanding of their effects on plant-plant interactions. The outcome of plant facilitative interactions can be indirectly affected by mycorrhizal symbiosis, ultimately shaping biodiversity patterns. We tested whether mycorrhizal symbiosis enhances plant facilitative interactions and whether its effect is consistent across different methodological approaches and biological scenarios. We conducted a meta-analysis of 215 cases (involving 21 nurse and 29 facilitated species), in which the performance of a facilitated plant species is measured in the presence or absence of mycorrhizal fungi. We show that mycorrhizal fungi significantly enhance plant facilitative interactions mainly through an increment in plant biomass (aboveground) and nutrient content, although their effects differ across biological contexts. In semiarid environments mycorrhizal symbiosis enhances plant facilitation, while its effect is non-significant in temperate ecosystems. In addition, arbuscular but not ecto-mycorrhizal (EMF) fungi significantly enhances plant facilitation, particularly increasing the P content of the plants more than EMF. Some knowledge gaps regarding the importance of this phenomenon have been detected in this meta-analysis. The effect of mycorrhizal symbiosis on plant facilitation has rarely been assessed in other ecosystems different from semiarid and temperate forests, and rarely considering other fungal benefits provided to plants besides nutrients. Finally, we are still far from understanding the effects of the whole fungal community on plant-plant interactions, and on plant species coexistence.
Data from: Partner diversity and identity impacts on plant productivity in Acacia-rhizobial interactions
1.Genetic variation for functionally important traits is ubiquitous in communities of nitrogen-fixing rhizobia, and while some studies have described significant effects of diversity on the functioning of plant-associated microbial communities, we lack a systematic test of how rhizobial diversity influences plant productivity. 2. The complexity of potential interactions among rhizobia and plants complicates the development of general predictions regarding causal relationships between rhizobial diversity and plant productivity. For example, while rhizobial complementarity may result in positive associations between symbiont diversity and plant productivity, antagonistic competition may reduce rhizobial community function. 3. Using two widespread native Australian Acacia species (A. salicina, A. stenophylla) and experimental rhizobial communities derived from 16 bacterial genotypes naturally associated with these hosts, we examined how the provision of mutualistic benefit varies with rhizobial identity, diversity and phylogenetic relatedness. 4. Analysis of plant performance in relation to rhizobial genotypic richness revealed that the presence of multiple rhizobial genotypes in the rhizosphere was associated with a general decrease in plant productivity compared to growth with single rhizobial genotypes. Importantly, these results appear to be robust in the face of variation in host identity and host diversity (i.e. one or two species mixtures). We also found that rhizobial genotypic identity and host species significantly influenced plant productivity in Acacia-rhizobia interactions, both in single and multi-strain inoculations. 5. Synthesis. Together, our data show that multiple rhizobia interacting with a single host species creates opportunities for emergent or higher-order effects that extend beyond those that could be simply predicted based upon outcomes of pairwise interactions, and that increased mutualist diversity does not necessarily translate into positive effects on plant growth.
Data from:Differential induction of plant chemical defenses by parasitized and unparasitized herbivores: consequences for reciprocal, multitrophic interactions
Insect parasitoids can play ecologically important roles in virtually all terrestrial plant–insect herbivore interactions, yet whether parasitoids alter the defensive traits that underlie interactions between plants and their herbivores remains a largely unexplored question. Here, we examined the reciprocal trophic interactions among populations of the wild cabbage Brassica oleracea that vary greatly in their production of defensive secondary compounds – glucosinolates (GSs), a generalist herbivore, Trichoplusia ni, and its polyembryonic parasitoid Copidosoma floridanum. In a greenhouse environment, plants were exposed to either healthy (unparasitized), parasitized, or no herbivores. Feeding damage by herbivores induced higher levels of the indole GSs, glucobrassicin and neoglucobrassicin, but not any of the other measured GSs. Herbivores parasitized by C. floridanum induced cabbage plants to produce 1.5 times more indole GSs than levels induced by healthy T. ni and five times more than uninduced plants. As a gregarious endoparasitoid, C. floridanum causes its host T. ni to feed more than unparasitized herbivores resulting in increased induction of indole GSs. In turn, herbivore fitness parameters (including differential effects on male and female contributions to lifetime fecundity in the herbivore) were negatively correlated with the aliphatic GSs, sinigrin and gluconapin, whereas parasitoid fitness parameters were negatively correlated with the indole GSs, glucobrassicin and neoglucobrassicin. That herbivores and their parasitoids appear to be affected by different sets of GSs was unexpected given the intimate developmental associations between host and parasitoid. This study is the first to demonstrate that parasitoids, through increasing feeding by their herbivorous hosts, can induce higher levels of non-volatile plant chemical defenses. While parasitoids are widely recognized to be ubiquitous in most terrestrial insect herbivore communities, their role in influencing plant–insect herbivore relationships is still vastly underappreciated.
Data from: Interactions between functionally diverse fungal mutualists inconsistently affect plant performance and competition
Plants form mutualistic relationship with a variety of belowground fungal species. Such a mutualistic relationship can enhance plant growth and resistance to pathogens. Yet, we know little about how interactions between functionally diverse groups of fungal mutualists affect plant performance and competition. We experimentally determined the effects of interaction between two functional groups of belowground fungi that form mutualistic relationship with plants, arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and Trichoderma, on interspecific competition between pairs of closely related plant species from four different genera. We hypothesized that the combination of two functionally diverse belowground fungal species would allow plants and fungi to partition their symbiotic relationships and relax plant‐plant competition. Our results show that: 1) the AM fungal species consistently outcompeted the Trichoderma species independent of plant combinations; 2) the fungal species generally had limited effects on competitive interactions between plants; 3) however, the combination of fungal species relaxed interspecific competition in one of the four instances of plant–plant competition, despite the general competitive superiority of AM fungi over Trichoderma. We highlight that the competitive outcome between functionally diverse fungal species may show high consistency across a broad range of host plants and their combinations. However, despite this consistent competitive hierarchy, the consequences of their interaction for plant performance and competition can strongly vary among plant communities.
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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.