Analysis of interspecific interactions in a coastal plant community—a perturbation approach

Nature ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 298 (5874) ◽  
pp. 557-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Silander ◽  
J. Antonovics
Keyword(s):  
Plant Community ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Perturbation Approach ◽  
Coastal Plant

scholarly journals Hierarchical organization of a Sardinian sand dune plant community

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Cusseddu ◽  
Giulia Ceccherelli ◽  
Mark Bertness
Keyword(s):  
Plant Community ◽  
Sand Dune ◽  
Seedling Recruitment ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Foundation Species ◽  
Dune Sand ◽  
Sand Burial ◽  
Dune Plant

Coastal sand dunes have attracted the attention of plant ecologists for over a century, but they have largely relied on correlations to explain dune plant community organization. We experimentally examined longstanding hypotheses that sand binding, interspecific interactions, abiotic factors and seedling recruitment are drivers of sand dune plant community structure in Sardinia, Italy. Removing foundation species from the fore, middle and back dune habitats over 3 years led to erosion and habitat loss on the fore dune and limited plant recovery that increased with dune elevation. Reciprocal species removals in all zones suggested that interspecific competition is common, but that dominance is transient, particularly due to sand burial disturbance in the middle dune. A fully factorial 2-year physical factor manipulation of water, nutrient availability and substrate stability revealed no significant proximate response to these abiotic factors in any dune zone. In the fore and middle dune, plant seeds are trapped under adult plants during seed germination, and seedling survivorship and growth generally increase with dune height in spite of increased herbivory in the back dune. Sand and seed erosion lead to limited seed recruitment on the fore dune while high summer temperatures and allelopathy lead to competitive dominance of woody plants in the back dune. Our results suggest that Sardinian sand dune plant communities are hierarchically organized, structured by sand binding foundation species on the fore dune, sand burial in the middle dune and increasingly successful seedling recruitment, growth and competitive dominance in the back dune.

scholarly journals Spatial segregation of subordinate species is not controlled by the dominant species in a tropical coastal plant community

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 23-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mário L. Garbin ◽  
Karlo G. Guidoni-Martins ◽  
Renan K. Hollunder ◽  
Pierre Mariotte ◽  
Fabio R. Scarano ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Plant Community ◽  
Dominant Species ◽  
Spatial Segregation ◽  
Coastal Plant ◽  
Subordinate Species

scholarly journals Hierarchical organization of a Sardinian sand dune plant community

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Cusseddu ◽  
Giulia Ceccherelli ◽  
Mark Bertness
Keyword(s):  
Plant Community ◽  
Sand Dune ◽  
Seedling Recruitment ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Foundation Species ◽  
Dune Sand ◽  
Sand Burial ◽  
Dune Plant

Coastal sand dunes have attracted the attention of plant ecologists for over a century, but they have largely relied on correlations to explain dune plant community organization. We experimentally examined longstanding hypotheses that sand binding, interspecific interactions, abiotic factors and seedling recruitment are drivers of sand dune plant community structure in Sardinia, Italy. Removing foundation species from the fore, middle and back dune habitats over 3 years led to erosion and habitat loss on the fore dune and limited plant recovery that increased with dune elevation. Reciprocal species removals in all zones suggested that interspecific competition is common, but that dominance is transient, particularly due to sand burial disturbance in the middle dune. A fully factorial 2-year physical factor manipulation of water, nutrient availability and substrate stability revealed no significant proximate response to these abiotic factors in any dune zone. In the fore and middle dune, plant seeds are trapped under adult plants during seed germination, and seedling survivorship and growth generally increase with dune height in spite of increased herbivory in the back dune. Sand and seed erosion lead to limited seed recruitment on the fore dune while high summer temperatures and allelopathy lead to competitive dominance of woody plants in the back dune. Our results suggest that Sardinian sand dune plant communities are hierarchically organized, structured by sand binding foundation species on the fore dune, sand burial in the middle dune and increasingly successful seedling recruitment, growth and competitive dominance in the back dune.

Temporal dynamics of mycorrhizal fungal communities and co-associations with grassland plant communities following experimental manipulation of rainfall

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coline Deveautour ◽  
Sally Power ◽  
Kirk Barnett ◽  
Raul Ochoa-Hueso ◽  
Suzanne Donn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Fungal Community ◽  
Mycorrhizal Fungi ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Arbuscular Mycorrhizal ◽  
Fungal Communities ◽  
Plant Responses ◽  
Rainfall Regimes

Climate models project overall a reduction in rainfall amounts and shifts in the timing of rainfall events in mid-latitudes and sub-tropical dry regions, which threatens the productivity and diversity of grasslands. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi may help plants to cope with expected changes but may also be impacted by changing rainfall, either via the direct effects of low soil moisture on survival and function or indirectly via changes in the plant community. In an Australian mesic grassland (former pasture) system, we characterised plant and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities every six months for nearly four years to two altered rainfall regimes: i) ambient, ii) rainfall reduced by 50% relative to ambient over the entire year and iii) total summer rainfall exclusion. Using Illumina sequencing, we assessed the response of AM fungal communities sampled from contrasting rainfall treatments and evaluated whether variation in AM fungal communities was associated with variation in plant community richness and composition. We found that rainfall reduction influenced the fungal communities, with the nature of the response depending on the type of manipulation, but that consistent results were only observed after more than two years of rainfall manipulation. We observed significant co-associations between plant and AM fungal communities on multiple dates. Predictive co-correspondence analyses indicated more support for the hypothesis that fungal community composition influenced plant community composition than vice versa. However, we found no evidence that altered rainfall regimes were leading to distinct co-associations between plants and AM fungi. Overall, our results provide evidence that grassland plant communities are intricately tied to variation in AM fungal communities. However, in this system, plant responses to climate change may not be directly related to impacts of altered rainfall regimes on AM fungal communities. Our study shows that AM fungal communities respond to changes in rainfall but that this effect was not immediate. The AM fungal community may influence the composition of the plant community. However, our results suggest that plant responses to altered rainfall regimes at our site may not be resulting via changes in the AM fungal communities.

Climate-associated trends and variability in ichthyoplankton phenology from the longest continuous larval fish time series on the east coast of the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 650 ◽  
pp. 269-287
Author(s):  
WC Thaxton ◽  
JC Taylor ◽  
RG Asch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Larval Fish ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
River Estuary ◽  
Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Larval Survival ◽  
Ecological Communities ◽  
Northerly Wind

As the effects of climate change become more pronounced, variation in the direction and magnitude of shifts in species occurrence in space and time may disrupt interspecific interactions in ecological communities. In this study, we examined how the fall and winter ichthyoplankton community in the Newport River Estuary located inshore of Pamlico Sound in the southeastern United States has responded to environmental variability over the last 27 yr. We relate the timing of estuarine ingress of 10 larval fish species to changes in sea surface temperature (SST), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, wind strength and phenology, and tidal height. We also examined whether any species exhibited trends in ingress phenology over the last 3 decades. Species varied in the magnitude of their responses to all of the environmental variables studied, but most shared a common direction of change. SST and northerly wind strength had the largest impact on estuarine ingress phenology, with most species ingressing earlier during warm years and delaying ingress during years with strong northerly winds. As SST warms in the coming decades, the average date of ingress of some species (Atlantic croaker Micropogonias undulatus, summer flounder Paralichthys dentatus, pinfish Lagodon rhomboides) is projected to advance on the order of weeks to months, assuming temperatures do not exceed a threshold at which species can no longer respond through changes in phenology. These shifts in ingress could affect larval survival and growth since environmental conditions in the estuarine and pelagic nursery habitats of fishes also vary seasonally.

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