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The Relationship between Species Richness and Evenness in Plant Communities along a Successional Gradient: A Study from Sub-Alpine Meadows of the Eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China
The relationship between species richness and evenness across communities remains an unsettled issue in ecology from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. As a result, we do not know the mechanisms that could generate a relationship between species richness and evenness, and how this responds...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3494667/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23152845 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049024 |
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author | Zhang, Hui John, Robert Peng, Zechen Yuan, Jianli Chu, Chengjin Du, Guozhen Zhou, Shurong |
author_facet | Zhang, Hui John, Robert Peng, Zechen Yuan, Jianli Chu, Chengjin Du, Guozhen Zhou, Shurong |
author_sort | Zhang, Hui |
collection | PubMed |
description | The relationship between species richness and evenness across communities remains an unsettled issue in ecology from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. As a result, we do not know the mechanisms that could generate a relationship between species richness and evenness, and how this responds to spatial scale. Here we examine the relationship between species richness(S) and evenness (Pielou’s J′ evenness) using a chronosequence of successional sub-alpine meadow communities in the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. These meadows range from natural community (never farmed), to those that have been protected from agricultural exploitation for periods ranging from 1 to 10 years. A total of 30 sampling quadrats with size of 0.5 m×0.5 m were laid out along two transects at each meadow. Using correlation analyses we found a consistent negative correlation between S and J′ in these communities along the successional gradient at the sampling scale of 0.5 m×0.5 m. We also explored the relationship between S and J′ at different sampling scales (from 0.5 m×0.5 m to10 m×10 m) using properly measured ramet-mapped data of a10 m×10 m quadrat in the natural community. We found that S was negatively corrected with J′ at the scales of 0.5 m×0.5 m to 2 m×2 m, but such a relationships disappeared at relative larger scales (≥2 m×4 m). When fitting different species abundance models combined with trait-specific methods, we found that niche preemption may be the determining mechanism of species evenness along the succession gradient. Considering all results together, we can conclude that such niche differentiation and spatial scale effects may help to explain the maintenance of high species richness in sub-alpine meadow communities. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3494667 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-34946672012-11-14 The Relationship between Species Richness and Evenness in Plant Communities along a Successional Gradient: A Study from Sub-Alpine Meadows of the Eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China Zhang, Hui John, Robert Peng, Zechen Yuan, Jianli Chu, Chengjin Du, Guozhen Zhou, Shurong PLoS One Research Article The relationship between species richness and evenness across communities remains an unsettled issue in ecology from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. As a result, we do not know the mechanisms that could generate a relationship between species richness and evenness, and how this responds to spatial scale. Here we examine the relationship between species richness(S) and evenness (Pielou’s J′ evenness) using a chronosequence of successional sub-alpine meadow communities in the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. These meadows range from natural community (never farmed), to those that have been protected from agricultural exploitation for periods ranging from 1 to 10 years. A total of 30 sampling quadrats with size of 0.5 m×0.5 m were laid out along two transects at each meadow. Using correlation analyses we found a consistent negative correlation between S and J′ in these communities along the successional gradient at the sampling scale of 0.5 m×0.5 m. We also explored the relationship between S and J′ at different sampling scales (from 0.5 m×0.5 m to10 m×10 m) using properly measured ramet-mapped data of a10 m×10 m quadrat in the natural community. We found that S was negatively corrected with J′ at the scales of 0.5 m×0.5 m to 2 m×2 m, but such a relationships disappeared at relative larger scales (≥2 m×4 m). When fitting different species abundance models combined with trait-specific methods, we found that niche preemption may be the determining mechanism of species evenness along the succession gradient. Considering all results together, we can conclude that such niche differentiation and spatial scale effects may help to explain the maintenance of high species richness in sub-alpine meadow communities. Public Library of Science 2012-11-09 /pmc/articles/PMC3494667/ /pubmed/23152845 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049024 Text en © 2012 Zhang et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Zhang, Hui John, Robert Peng, Zechen Yuan, Jianli Chu, Chengjin Du, Guozhen Zhou, Shurong The Relationship between Species Richness and Evenness in Plant Communities along a Successional Gradient: A Study from Sub-Alpine Meadows of the Eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China |
title | The Relationship between Species Richness and Evenness in Plant Communities along a Successional Gradient: A Study from Sub-Alpine Meadows of the Eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China |
title_full | The Relationship between Species Richness and Evenness in Plant Communities along a Successional Gradient: A Study from Sub-Alpine Meadows of the Eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China |
title_fullStr | The Relationship between Species Richness and Evenness in Plant Communities along a Successional Gradient: A Study from Sub-Alpine Meadows of the Eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China |
title_full_unstemmed | The Relationship between Species Richness and Evenness in Plant Communities along a Successional Gradient: A Study from Sub-Alpine Meadows of the Eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China |
title_short | The Relationship between Species Richness and Evenness in Plant Communities along a Successional Gradient: A Study from Sub-Alpine Meadows of the Eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China |
title_sort | relationship between species richness and evenness in plant communities along a successional gradient: a study from sub-alpine meadows of the eastern qinghai-tibetan plateau, china |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3494667/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23152845 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049024 |
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