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106 results for “plant functional diversity”

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Data from: Individual and interactive effects of chronic anthropogenic disturbance and rainfall on taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic composition and diversity of extrafloral nectary-bearing plants in Brazilian Caatinga

Chronic anthropogenic disturbance (CAD) and climate change represent two of the major threats to biodiversity globally, but their combined effects are not well understood. Here we investigate the individual and interactive effects of increasing CAD and decreasing rainfall on the composition and taxonomic (TD), functional (FD) and phylogenetic diversity (PD) of plants possessing extrafloral nectaries (EFNs) in semi-arid Brazilian Caatinga. EFNs attract ants that protect plants against insect herbivore attack and are extremely prevalent in the Caatinga flora. EFN-bearing plants were censused along gradients of disturbance and rainfall in Catimbau National Park in north-eastern Brazil. We recorded a total of 2,243 individuals belonging to 21 species. Taxonomic and functional composition varied along the rainfall gradient, but not along the disturbance gradient. There was a significant interaction between increasing disturbance and decreasing rainfall, with CAD leading to decreased TD, FD and PD in the most arid areas, and to increased TD, FD and PD in the wettest areas. We found a strong phylogenetic signal in the EFN traits we analysed, which explains the strong matching between patterns of FD and PD along the environmental gradients. The interactive effects of disturbance and rainfall revealed by our study indicate that the decreased rainfall forecast for Caatinga under climate change will increase the sensitivity of EFN-bearing plants to anthropogenic disturbance. This has important implications for the availability of a key food resource, which would likely have cascading effects on higher trophic levels.

opencc-zeroNov 2021View details →

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Disentangling the roles of plant functional diversity and plaint traits in regulating plant nitrogen accumulation and denitrification in freshwaters

1. There is a growing recognition that functional measures of diversity, based on quantification of functionally important species traits, are useful for explaining variation in ecosystem processes. However, the mechanisms linking functional diversity to different processes remain poorly understood, hindering development of a predictive framework for ecosystem functioning based on species traits. 2. The current understanding of how the functional traits of aquatic plants (macrophytes) affect nitrogen (N) cycling by regulating microbial communities and their activity in freshwater habitats is particularly limited. Denitrifying bacteria are typically associated with the roots of both aquatic and terrestrial plants and denitrification is the main cause of loss of N from ecosystems. Disentangling the interplay between plants and microbial denitrifiers is key to understanding variation in rates of denitrification from local to landscape scales. 3. In a mesocosm experiment, we varied the species richness (monocultures or two- species mixtures) and composition of macrophytes. We quantified effects of both macrophyte functional diversity, quantified as functional trait dissimilarity, and functional trait composition, quantified as community weighted mean trait values, on N removal in wetlands. We used structural equation modelling to disentangle the direct and indirect influences of traits on N accumulation in plant biomass, denitrification activity and abundance of key bacterial denitrification genes (nirSand nirK). 4. Both functional diversity and functional trait composition regulated N removal, explaining 70 – 94% variation in the underlying ecosystem processes. Increased macrophyte functional diversity increased plant N accumulation, and indirectly enhanced denitrification by increasing denitrification gene abundance. Among traits, greater plant relative growth rates, specific leaf area and aboveground biomass increased plant N accumulation. Denitrification activity increased with increasing belowground biomass but decreased with increasing root diameter. 5. These findings improve our understanding of N removal in freshwater wetlands dominated by macrophytes, and have broad ecological implications for wetland management targeting enhanced ecosystem services. Our results highlight the potential for optimising denitrification and plant N accumulation in wetlands and thereby improving water purification by increasing macrophyte functional diversity and ensuring the presence of key traits in macrophyte assemblages.

opencc-zeroDec 2021View details →

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Data from: Partitioning the effects of plant diversity on ecosystem functions at different trophic levels

Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning can be partitioned into complementarity effects, driven by many species, and selection effects, driven by few. Selection effects occur through interspecific abundance shifts (dominance) and intraspecific shifts in functioning. Complementarity and selection effects are often calculated for biomass, but very rarely for secondary productivity, i.e. energy transfer to higher trophic levels. We calculated diversity effects for three functions: aboveground biomass, insect herbivory and pathogen infection, the latter two as proxies for energy transfer to higher trophic levels, in a grassland experiment (PaNDiv) manipulating species richness, functional composition, nitrogen enrichment and fungicide treatment. Complementarity effects were on average positive and selection effects negative for biomass production and pathogen infection and multiple species contributed to diversity effects in mixtures. Diversity effects were on average less pronounced for herbivory. Diversity effects for the three functions were not correlated, because different species drove the different diversity effects. Benefits (and costs) from growing in diverse communities, be it reduced herbivore or pathogen damage or increased productivity either due to abundance increases or increased productivity per area were distributed across different plant species, leading to highly variable contributions of single species to diversity effects on different functions. These results show that different underlying ecological mechanisms can result in similar overall diversity effects across functions.

opencc-zeroFeb 2022View details →

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Tree mixtures increase bird taxonomic and functional diversity over pure stands of tree species planted outside their natural range—but not over pure native stands

Recent biodiversity loss has emphasized the necessity to critically evaluate the consequences of human alterations of forest ecosystems. Stand diversification via tree species mixtures and the use of non-native tree species are two such alterations currently gaining importance as climate change adaptations. However, the effects of local versus regional tree mixing on associated biodiversity and notably the modifying role of tree species growing outside their natural range remain poorly understood. We assessed how monocultures and mixtures of native and introduced tree species influence the taxonomic and functional diversity of northwest German bird communities at stand and landscape scales. We focused on the dominant natural tree species (Fagus sylvatica) and economically important conifer species planted outside their natural range (the native Picea abies and non-native Pseudotsuga menziesii). We found that bird species richness and functional diversity were generally higher in pure and mixed stands of native F. sylvatica than in pure conifer stands, especially in comparison to non-native P. menziesii. These differences were particularly strong at the landscape scale. Pure conifer stands harbored only a reduced set of functionally similar bird species. Structural diversity based on tree microhabitat availability emerged as a key predictor of bird diversity. Synthesis and applications: Our study suggests that tree species mixtures do not necessarily increase bird diversity compared to pure stands of native trees, but can promote bird diversity relative to pure stands of species planted outside their natural range. Moreover, local mixtures, rather than a mosaic of pure stands, may promote bird diversity also at the landscape scale. By contrast, pure stands of tree species planted outside their natural range can increase the biotic homogenization of forest birds. Promoting structural diversity of microhabitats via tree retention and ensuring that non-native trees are planted in mixtures with native trees may alleviate potential limitations of climate change-oriented management for biodiversity.

opencc-zeroAug 2022View details →

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Data from: Functional diversity is a passenger but not driver of drought-related plant diversity losses in annual grasslands

1. Effects of climate change on plant community functional diversity are of interest since experiments have found functional diversity to predict ecosystem function. Functional diversity has been hypothesized to confer resilience to plant communities (as a "driver" of community change), but in unmanipulated natural communities, it might alternatively (or additionally) act as a "passenger" by responding to changes in plant diversity caused by extrinsic factors such as climate. 2. We examined trends in plant functional diversity in annual grasslands in Northern California over a 19-year period, during which a trend toward drier winters had previously been associated with the losses of drought-intolerant species. We tested whether functional diversity decreased over the period of the study (acting as a passenger), and also whether initial site functional diversity influenced the degree of community change over the study period (acting as a driver). 3. Initial community functional diversity was not related to species richness loss or community variability. We found that functional diversity declined as plant species richness and community mean specific leaf area declined over the course of the study, and all of these trends were associated with declining precipitation, indicating that functional diversity acted as a passenger of community change. 4. Synthesis. This study is among the first to demonstrate that recent climatic trends may drive loss of functional diversity. Our findings highlight that functional diversity does not necessarily confer community resilience when its variation is shaped by the environment rather than by experimental treatments.

opencc-zeroAug 2019View details →

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Functional diversity response to geographic and experimental precipitation gradients varies with plant community type

Precipitation is a primary determinant of plant community structure in drylands. However, the empirical evidence and predictions are lacking for how plant functional diversity in desert and steppe communities respond to altered precipitation regimes. We examined how precipitation changes along the natural and experimental gradients affect different components of functional diversity in desert-shrub and steppe-grass communities. We compared the associations of precipitation changes with community-weighted means (CWM) of six traits, functional divergence (FDvar) of each single-trait, and multi-trait functional richness (FRic) and dispersion (FDis) for shrub and grass communities along the natural and experimental gradients. We also disentangle the roles of species turnover and intraspecific variations in affecting the responses of different functional diversity to precipitation changes. We found that in general, the similar responses of functional traits or diversity to both the natural and experimental precipitation gradient were dependent on plant community type. Across both two gradients, precipitation was positively associated with CWM of plant height and negatively associated with the CWM of specific leaf area and leaf thickness in grass community, while positively associated with FDvar of four traits and FDis in shrub communities. Both species turnover and intraspecific variations contributed to the responses of grass community traits to precipitation changes across both two gradients, and to functional divergence of traits and FDis in shrub community along the natural gradient. In contrast, species turnover variations contributed to functional divergence of traits and FDis in shrub community in experiment. These results suggest that there is better concordance between the effects of naturally and experimentally increased precipitation on functional diversity of plant communities, but different mechanisms behind the relationship of functional diversity-precipitation between shrub and grass communities. Grass communities can adapt to precipitation changes by average trait differences, while shrub communities persist through the functional divergence of single-trait and multi-trait dispersion, thus highlighting the important differences in adaptive strategies between shrub and grass communities. Our findings demonstrate that the short-term responses of plant communities to manipulative precipitation changes can reflect long-term shifts at spatial scales depending on the specific functional trait and diversity.

opencc-zeroJul 2021View details →

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Functional diversity of experimental annual plant assemblages drives plant responses to biological soil crusts in gypsum systems

1. Biological soil crusts (BSC) are complex biotic aggregates comprised of lichens, cyanobacteria, algae, and other microorganism that are known to differently affect plant development along life cycle by selecting plant functional traits based on species-specific effects. In addition, functional differences between interacting species should modulate their response ability to other environmental factors. Thus, it should be expected that the effects of the BSC on plants will be significantly determined by the own functional diversity in the community. 2. To understand the multiple effects of BSC and the extent to which the functional diversity of interacting plant species can modulate their effects on the development of coexisting species, we applied an experimental approach by manipulating the initial functional diversity of the entire annual plant community and BSC conditions in a common garden trial. We crossed three sorts of assemblages built on the basis of plant stature (combinations of only large, or only small, or diverse sized plant species in pots) with three lichen-dominated BSC disturbance scenarios (intact, or tiny mechanically disaggregated, or absent portions of BSC). 3. Biological soil crusts strongly affected the establishment and development of gypsophilous annual plants in a complex, multifaceted manner, which shifted throughout the plant life cycle. We demonstrated that lichen-dominated BSC could act as a major physical barrier to the establishment of annual plants at a heterogeneous fine spatial scale. Such a restrictive effect was particularly marked in presence of intact BSC. However, after annual plants overcame the restrictions imposed by BSC, the same biotic layer facilitated plant growth and fitness, regardless of its physical integrity, resulting in larger plants producing more fruits. 4. Importantly, our results suggest that the functional diversity structure of the community may also drive growth and fitness of coexisting species by activating alternative coexistence mechanisms such as niche partitioning or competition symmetry. This study highlights the importance of plant neighbourhood features for the performance of interacting species, and confirms a novel, experimental way to explore the effects of community diversity on plants for the interpretation of assembly mechanisms.

opencc-zeroNov 2022View details →

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