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Regeneration niche differentiates functional strategies of desert woody plant species

Plant communities vary dramatically in the number and relative abundance of species that exhibit facilitative interactions, which contributes substantially to variation in community structure and dynamics. Predicting species’ responses to neighbors based on readily measurable functional traits would...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Butterfield, Bradley J., Briggs, John M.
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer-Verlag 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3021705/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20686787
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1741-y
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author Butterfield, Bradley J.
Briggs, John M.
author_facet Butterfield, Bradley J.
Briggs, John M.
author_sort Butterfield, Bradley J.
collection PubMed
description Plant communities vary dramatically in the number and relative abundance of species that exhibit facilitative interactions, which contributes substantially to variation in community structure and dynamics. Predicting species’ responses to neighbors based on readily measurable functional traits would provide important insight into the factors that structure plant communities. We measured a suite of functional traits on seedlings of 20 species and mature plants of 54 species of shrubs from three arid biogeographic regions. We hypothesized that species with different regeneration niches—those that require nurse plants for establishment (beneficiaries) versus those that do not (colonizers)—are functionally different. Indeed, seedlings of beneficiary species had lower relative growth rates, larger seeds and final biomass, allocated biomass toward roots and height at a cost to leaf mass fraction, and constructed costly, dense leaf and root tissues relative to colonizers. Likewise at maturity, beneficiaries had larger overall size and denser leaves coupled with greater water use efficiency than colonizers. In contrast to current hypotheses that suggest beneficiaries are less “stress-tolerant” than colonizers, beneficiaries exhibited conservative functional strategies suited to persistently dry, low light conditions beneath canopies, whereas colonizers exhibited opportunistic strategies that may be advantageous in fluctuating, open microenvironments. In addition, the signature of the regeneration niche at maturity indicates that facilitation expands the range of functional diversity within plant communities at all ontogenetic stages. This study demonstrates the utility of specific functional traits for predicting species’ regeneration niches in hot deserts, and provides a framework for studying facilitation in other severe environments. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00442-010-1741-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-30217052011-02-22 Regeneration niche differentiates functional strategies of desert woody plant species Butterfield, Bradley J. Briggs, John M. Oecologia Community ecology - Original Paper Plant communities vary dramatically in the number and relative abundance of species that exhibit facilitative interactions, which contributes substantially to variation in community structure and dynamics. Predicting species’ responses to neighbors based on readily measurable functional traits would provide important insight into the factors that structure plant communities. We measured a suite of functional traits on seedlings of 20 species and mature plants of 54 species of shrubs from three arid biogeographic regions. We hypothesized that species with different regeneration niches—those that require nurse plants for establishment (beneficiaries) versus those that do not (colonizers)—are functionally different. Indeed, seedlings of beneficiary species had lower relative growth rates, larger seeds and final biomass, allocated biomass toward roots and height at a cost to leaf mass fraction, and constructed costly, dense leaf and root tissues relative to colonizers. Likewise at maturity, beneficiaries had larger overall size and denser leaves coupled with greater water use efficiency than colonizers. In contrast to current hypotheses that suggest beneficiaries are less “stress-tolerant” than colonizers, beneficiaries exhibited conservative functional strategies suited to persistently dry, low light conditions beneath canopies, whereas colonizers exhibited opportunistic strategies that may be advantageous in fluctuating, open microenvironments. In addition, the signature of the regeneration niche at maturity indicates that facilitation expands the range of functional diversity within plant communities at all ontogenetic stages. This study demonstrates the utility of specific functional traits for predicting species’ regeneration niches in hot deserts, and provides a framework for studying facilitation in other severe environments. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00442-010-1741-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer-Verlag 2010-08-05 2011 /pmc/articles/PMC3021705/ /pubmed/20686787 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1741-y Text en © The Author(s) 2010 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
spellingShingle Community ecology - Original Paper
Butterfield, Bradley J.
Briggs, John M.
Regeneration niche differentiates functional strategies of desert woody plant species
title Regeneration niche differentiates functional strategies of desert woody plant species
title_full Regeneration niche differentiates functional strategies of desert woody plant species
title_fullStr Regeneration niche differentiates functional strategies of desert woody plant species
title_full_unstemmed Regeneration niche differentiates functional strategies of desert woody plant species
title_short Regeneration niche differentiates functional strategies of desert woody plant species
title_sort regeneration niche differentiates functional strategies of desert woody plant species
topic Community ecology - Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3021705/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20686787
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1741-y
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