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Use of Spatial Analysis to Test Hypotheses on Plant Recruitment in a Hyper-Arid Ecosystem

Mounds originating from wind-blown sediment accumulation beneath vegetation (nebkhas) often indicate land degradation in dry areas. Thus far, most nebkha research has focused on individual plants. Here, we aimed to explore population-scale processes (up to scales of about 100 m) that might explain a...

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Autores principales: Quets, Jan J., Temmerman, Stijn, El-Bana, Magdy I., Al-Rowaily, Saud L., Assaeed, Abdulaziz M., Nijs, Ivan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3948780/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24614307
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091184
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author Quets, Jan J.
Temmerman, Stijn
El-Bana, Magdy I.
Al-Rowaily, Saud L.
Assaeed, Abdulaziz M.
Nijs, Ivan
author_facet Quets, Jan J.
Temmerman, Stijn
El-Bana, Magdy I.
Al-Rowaily, Saud L.
Assaeed, Abdulaziz M.
Nijs, Ivan
author_sort Quets, Jan J.
collection PubMed
description Mounds originating from wind-blown sediment accumulation beneath vegetation (nebkhas) often indicate land degradation in dry areas. Thus far, most nebkha research has focused on individual plants. Here, we aimed to explore population-scale processes (up to scales of about 100 m) that might explain an observed nebkha landscape pattern. We mapped the Rhazya stricta Decne. population in a 3 ha study site in a hyper-arid region of Saudi Arabia. We compared the spatial patterns of five different cohorts (age classes) of observed nebkha host plants to those expected under several hypothesized drivers of recruitment and intraspecific interaction. We found that all R. stricta cohorts had a limited fractional vegetation cover and established in large-scale clusters. This clustering weakened with cohort age, possibly indicating merging of neighboring vegetation patches. Different cohort clusters did not spatially overlap in most cases, indicating that recruitment patterns changed position over time. Strong indications were found that the main drivers underlying R. stricta spatial configurations were allogenic (i.e. not driven by vegetation) and dynamic. Most likely these drivers were aeolian-driven sand movement or human disturbance which forced offspring recruitment in spatially dynamic clusters. Competition and facilitation were likely active on the field site too, but apparently had a limited effect on the overall landscape structure.
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spelling pubmed-39487802014-03-13 Use of Spatial Analysis to Test Hypotheses on Plant Recruitment in a Hyper-Arid Ecosystem Quets, Jan J. Temmerman, Stijn El-Bana, Magdy I. Al-Rowaily, Saud L. Assaeed, Abdulaziz M. Nijs, Ivan PLoS One Research Article Mounds originating from wind-blown sediment accumulation beneath vegetation (nebkhas) often indicate land degradation in dry areas. Thus far, most nebkha research has focused on individual plants. Here, we aimed to explore population-scale processes (up to scales of about 100 m) that might explain an observed nebkha landscape pattern. We mapped the Rhazya stricta Decne. population in a 3 ha study site in a hyper-arid region of Saudi Arabia. We compared the spatial patterns of five different cohorts (age classes) of observed nebkha host plants to those expected under several hypothesized drivers of recruitment and intraspecific interaction. We found that all R. stricta cohorts had a limited fractional vegetation cover and established in large-scale clusters. This clustering weakened with cohort age, possibly indicating merging of neighboring vegetation patches. Different cohort clusters did not spatially overlap in most cases, indicating that recruitment patterns changed position over time. Strong indications were found that the main drivers underlying R. stricta spatial configurations were allogenic (i.e. not driven by vegetation) and dynamic. Most likely these drivers were aeolian-driven sand movement or human disturbance which forced offspring recruitment in spatially dynamic clusters. Competition and facilitation were likely active on the field site too, but apparently had a limited effect on the overall landscape structure. Public Library of Science 2014-03-10 /pmc/articles/PMC3948780/ /pubmed/24614307 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091184 Text en © 2014 Quets 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
Quets, Jan J.
Temmerman, Stijn
El-Bana, Magdy I.
Al-Rowaily, Saud L.
Assaeed, Abdulaziz M.
Nijs, Ivan
Use of Spatial Analysis to Test Hypotheses on Plant Recruitment in a Hyper-Arid Ecosystem
title Use of Spatial Analysis to Test Hypotheses on Plant Recruitment in a Hyper-Arid Ecosystem
title_full Use of Spatial Analysis to Test Hypotheses on Plant Recruitment in a Hyper-Arid Ecosystem
title_fullStr Use of Spatial Analysis to Test Hypotheses on Plant Recruitment in a Hyper-Arid Ecosystem
title_full_unstemmed Use of Spatial Analysis to Test Hypotheses on Plant Recruitment in a Hyper-Arid Ecosystem
title_short Use of Spatial Analysis to Test Hypotheses on Plant Recruitment in a Hyper-Arid Ecosystem
title_sort use of spatial analysis to test hypotheses on plant recruitment in a hyper-arid ecosystem
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3948780/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24614307
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091184
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