scholarly journals Examining the foundations of heterogeneity-based management for promoting plant diversity in a disturbance-prone ecosystem

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J McGlinn ◽  
Michael W Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Variation ◽  
Tallgrass Prairie ◽  
Landscape Heterogeneity ◽  
Variation Partitioning ◽  
Vascular Plant ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variation ◽  
Management Approach ◽  
Compositional Variation ◽  
In Fire

The conservation of disturbance-prone ecosystems such as rangelands may depend on the spatial and temporal variation in the application of disturbances. Patch-burn management approaches attempt to increase overall landscape biodiversity by creating a mosaic of habitat patches using a patchy application of fire and grazing. Three fundamental assumptions underlay the patch-burn management approach: 1) fire and grazing drive spatial patch differentiation in community structure, 2) species composition of patches diverge through time in response to disturbance, 3) high spatio-temporal variation in fire and grazing results in high compositional variation and thus high landscape-scale diversity. We tested the first two assumptions of the patch-burn approach by comparing the importance of variation in management (changes in fire frequency and grazer species) relative to inherent sources of landscape heterogeneity at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Osage Co., Oklahoma, USA. We sampled 150 square 100 m2 quadrats on a 1 x 1 km UTM grid. We randomly selected 20 of those quadrats to annually resample for 12-years. We recorded visual cover of all vascular plant species rooted within each quadrat. We used variation partitioning within multiple regression and direct ordination frameworks to estimate the relative contribution of classes of variables on species richness and composition respectively. Our results indicate that there was some support for the two assumptions underlying patch-burn management; however, independent spatial and temporal inherent landscape heterogeneity played a much larger role than management in shaping both plant richness and composition. The strength of inherent landscape heterogeneity on the plant community suggests that fine-tuning the application of fire and grazing is not critical for maintaining this community as long as fire and grazing remain part of the system. More generally, the effects of intrinsic spatiotemporal template on biodiversity may dominate even in disturbance-prone ecosystems.

scholarly journals Examining the foundations of heterogeneity-based management for promoting plant diversity in a disturbance-prone ecosystem

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J McGlinn ◽  
Michael W Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Variation ◽  
Tallgrass Prairie ◽  
Landscape Heterogeneity ◽  
Variation Partitioning ◽  
Vascular Plant ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variation ◽  
Management Approach ◽  
Compositional Variation ◽  
In Fire

The conservation of disturbance-prone ecosystems such as rangelands may depend on the spatial and temporal variation in the application of disturbances. Patch-burn management approaches attempt to increase overall landscape biodiversity by creating a mosaic of habitat patches using a patchy application of fire and grazing. Three fundamental assumptions underlay the patch-burn management approach: 1) fire and grazing drive spatial patch differentiation in community structure, 2) species composition of patches diverge through time in response to disturbance, 3) high spatio-temporal variation in fire and grazing results in high compositional variation and thus high landscape-scale diversity. We tested the first two assumptions of the patch-burn approach by comparing the importance of variation in management (changes in fire frequency and grazer species) relative to inherent sources of landscape heterogeneity at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Osage Co., Oklahoma, USA. We sampled 150 square 100 m2 quadrats on a 1 x 1 km UTM grid. We randomly selected 20 of those quadrats to annually resample for 12-years. We recorded visual cover of all vascular plant species rooted within each quadrat. We used variation partitioning within multiple regression and direct ordination frameworks to estimate the relative contribution of classes of variables on species richness and composition respectively. Our results indicate that there was some support for the two assumptions underlying patch-burn management; however, independent spatial and temporal inherent landscape heterogeneity played a much larger role than management in shaping both plant richness and composition. The strength of inherent landscape heterogeneity on the plant community suggests that fine-tuning the application of fire and grazing is not critical for maintaining this community as long as fire and grazing remain part of the system. More generally, the effects of intrinsic spatiotemporal template on biodiversity may dominate even in disturbance-prone ecosystems.

scholarly journals Examining the assumptions of heterogeneity-based management for promoting plant diversity in a disturbance-prone ecosystem

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e6738
Author(s):  
Daniel J. McGlinn ◽  
Michael W. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Species Composition ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Tallgrass Prairie ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Plant Richness ◽  
Direct Ordination ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
Landscape Biodiversity ◽  
In Fire ◽  
Grassland Habitats

Background Patch-burn management approaches attempt to increase overall landscape biodiversity by creating a mosaic of habitats using a patchy application of fire and grazing. We tested two assumptions of the patch-burn approach, namely that: (1) fire and grazing drive spatial patch differentiation in community structure and (2) species composition of patches change through time in response to disturbance. Methods We analyzed species cover data on 100 m2 square quadrats from 128 sites located on a 1 × 1 km UTM grid in the grassland habitats of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. A total of 20 of these sites were annually sampled for 12 years. We examined how strongly changes in species richness and species composition correlated with changes in management variables relative to independent spatial and temporal drivers using multiple regression and direct ordination, respectively. Results Site effects, probably due to edaphic differences, explained the majority of variation in richness and composition. Interannual variation in fire and grazing management was relatively unimportant relative to inherent site and year drivers with respect to both richness and composition; however, the effects of fire and grazing variables were statistically significant and interpretable, and bison management was positively correlated with plant richness. Conclusions There was some support for the two assumptions of patch-burn management we examined; however, in situ spatial and temporal environmental heterogeneity played a much larger role than management in shaping both plant richness and composition. Our results suggest that fine-tuning the application of fire and grazing may not be critical for maintaining landscape scale plant diversity in disturbance-prone ecosystems.

scholarly journals Spatial and Temporal Variation Characteristics of Snowfall in the Haihe River Basin from 1960 to 2016

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 1798
Author(s):  
Xu Wu ◽  
Su Li ◽  
Bin Liu ◽  
Dan Xu
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Variation ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variation ◽  
Haihe River Basin ◽  
Temperature Threshold ◽  
Threshold Method ◽  
Exponential Equation ◽  
Haihe River ◽  
The Haihe River Basin ◽  
Different Levels

The spatio-temporal variation of precipitation under global warming had been a research hotspot. Snowfall is an important part of precipitation, and its variabilities and trends in different regions have received great attention. In this paper, the Haihe River Basin is used as a case, and we employ the K-means clustering method to divide the basin into four sub-regions. The double temperature threshold method in the form of the exponential equation is used in this study to identify precipitation phase states, based on daily temperature, snowfall, and precipitation data from 43 meteorological stations in and around the Haihe River Basin from 1960 to 1979. Then, daily snowfall data from 1960 to 2016 are established, and the spatial and temporal variation of snowfall in the Haihe River Basin are analyzed according to the snowfall levels as determined by the national meteorological department. The results evalueted in four different zones show that (1) the snowfall at each meteorological station can be effectively estimated at an annual scale through the exponential equation, for which the correlation coefficient of each division is above 0.95, and the relative error is within 5%. (2) Except for the average snowfall and light snowfall, the snowfall and snowfall days of moderate snow, heavy snow, and snowstorm in each division are in the order of Zones III > IV > I > II. (3) The snowfall and the number of snowfall days at different levels both show a decreasing trend, except for the increasing trend of snowfall in Zone I. (4) The interannual variation trend in the snowfall at the different levels are not obvious, except for Zone III, which shows a significant decreasing trend.

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