The relationship between plant species richness and soil pH vanishes with increasing aridity across Eurasian dry grasslands

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salza Palpurina ◽  
Viktoria Wagner ◽  
Henrik von Wehrden ◽  
Michal Hájek ◽  
Michal Horsák ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Soil Ph ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Dry Grasslands ◽  
The Relationship

scholarly journals Relationships between resource availability and elevation vary between metrics creating gradients of nutritional complexity

Oecologia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 195 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-223
Author(s):  
Mark A. Lee ◽  
Grace Burger ◽  
Emma R. Green ◽  
Pepijn W. Kooij
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Resource Availability ◽  
Plant Biomass ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Mineral Contents ◽  
Nutritive Values ◽  
Animal Community ◽  
Nutritional Chemistry ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractPlant and animal community composition changes at higher elevations on mountains. Plant and animal species richness generally declines with elevation, but the shape of the relationship differs between taxa. There are several proposed mechanisms, including the productivity hypotheses; that declines in available plant biomass confers fewer resources to consumers, thus supporting fewer species. We investigated resource availability as we ascended three aspects of Helvellyn mountain, UK, measuring several plant nutritive metrics, plant species richness and biomass. We observed a linear decline in plant species richness as we ascended the mountain but there was a unimodal relationship between plant biomass and elevation. Generally, the highest biomass values at mid-elevations were associated with the lowest nutritive values, except mineral contents which declined with elevation. Intra-specific and inter-specific increases in nutritive values nearer the top and bottom of the mountain indicated that physiological, phenological and compositional mechanisms may have played a role. The shape of the relationship between resource availability and elevation was different depending on the metric. Many consumers actively select or avoid plants based on their nutritive values and the abundances of consumer taxa vary in their relationships with elevation. Consideration of multiple nutritive metrics and of the nutritional requirements of the consumer may provide a greater understanding of changes to plant and animal communities at higher elevations. We propose a novel hypothesis for explaining elevational diversity gradients, which warrants further study; the ‘nutritional complexity hypothesis’, where consumer species coexist due to greater variation in the nutritional chemistry of plants.

scholarly journals Species richness of alien plants in South Africa: Environmental correlates and the relationship with indigenous plant species richness

Ecoscience ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Richardson ◽  
Mathieu Rouget ◽  
Samantha J. Ralston ◽  
Richard M. Cowling ◽  
Berndt J. Van Rensburg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Alien Plants ◽  
Environmental Correlates ◽  
Indigenous Plant ◽  
The Relationship

Patterns of fine-scale plant species richness in dry grasslands across the eastern Balkan Peninsula

2015 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 36-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salza Palpurina ◽  
Milan Chytrý ◽  
Rossen Tzonev ◽  
Jiří Danihelka ◽  
Irena Axmanová ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Balkan Peninsula ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Fine Scale ◽  
Dry Grasslands

scholarly journals The type of nutrient limitation affects the plant species richness–productivity relationship: Evidence from dry grasslands across Eurasia

2018 ◽  
Vol 107 (3) ◽  
pp. 1038-1050 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salza Palpurina ◽  
Milan Chytrý ◽  
Norbert Hölzel ◽  
Lubomír Tichý ◽  
Viktoria Wagner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Nutrient Limitation ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Dry Grasslands

scholarly journals Relationships between plant species richness and soil pH at the level of biome and ecoregion in Brazil

2019 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 266-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Crespo-Mendes ◽  
Alexis Laurent ◽  
Hans Henrik Bruun ◽  
Michael Zwicky Hauschild
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Soil Ph ◽  
Plant Species Richness

Landscape-scale patterns in plant species richness along an arctic river

1997 ◽  
Vol 75 (10) ◽  
pp. 1748-1765 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Gould ◽  
Marilyn D. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Soil Ph ◽  
Environmental Heterogeneity ◽  
Landscape Heterogeneity ◽  
Vascular Plant ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
The North ◽  
Environmental Controls ◽  
July Temperature

We examined relationships of vascular plant species richness with mean July temperature and components of landscape heterogeneity to determine the relative influence of temperature and the physical landscape on plant richness along the north-flowing Hood River in the Northwest Territories of Canada. We also examined variations in the composition of the flora to better understand the relationship between riparian gradients, environmental controls, environmental heterogeneity, and species richness. The vascular flora for the area studied includes 210 species. Richness at 17 sites along the river ranged from 69 to 109 species within 2400-m2 sample areas. Sites with the lowest richness were those in the upper reaches of the river, with richness generally increasing downstream. Variation in richness along the river is correlated with increasing environmental heterogeneity (r2 = 0.598, P = 0.0003), calculated as an index summarizing the range of site-level variation in a set of components including substrate type and texture, topographic variation (slope and aspect), relative surface area, substrate moisture, and soil pH. The most significant component of the index is an increase in the range of soil pH. Soil pH tends to increase downstream, and average site soil pH is the single best predictor of species richness (r2 = 0.857, P < 0.0001). The primary cause of higher soil pH is the presence of uplifted marine sediments, and tills derived from nonacidic Precambrian rock common along the lower river. Key words: species richness, arctic, riparian, pH, mean July temperature, environmental heterogeneity.

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