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Niche construction mediates climate effects on recovery of tundra heathlands after extreme event

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events in northern ecosystems. The outcome of these events across the landscape, might be mediated by species effects, such as niche construction, with likely consequences on vegetation resilience. To test this hypothesis,...

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Autores principales: González, Victoria T., Lindgård, Bente, Reiersen, Rigmor, Hagen, Snorre B., Bråthen, Kari Anne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7861441/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33539380
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245929
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author González, Victoria T.
Lindgård, Bente
Reiersen, Rigmor
Hagen, Snorre B.
Bråthen, Kari Anne
author_facet González, Victoria T.
Lindgård, Bente
Reiersen, Rigmor
Hagen, Snorre B.
Bråthen, Kari Anne
author_sort González, Victoria T.
collection PubMed
description Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events in northern ecosystems. The outcome of these events across the landscape, might be mediated by species effects, such as niche construction, with likely consequences on vegetation resilience. To test this hypothesis, we simulated an extreme event by removing aboveground vegetation in tundra heathlands dominated by the allelopathic dwarf shrub Empetrum nigrum, a strong niche constructor. We tested the hypothesis under different climate regimes along a 200-km long gradient from oceanic to continental climate in Northern Norway. We studied the vegetation recovery process over ten years along the climatic gradient. The recovery of E. nigrum and subordinate species was low and flattened out after five years at all locations along the climatic gradient, causing low vegetation cover at the end of the study in extreme event plots. Natural seed recruitment was low at all sites, however, the addition of seeds from faster growing species did not promote vegetation recovery. A soil bioassay from 8 years after the vegetation was removed, suggested the allelopathic effect of E. nigrum was still present in the soil environment. Our results provide evidence of how a common niche constructor species can dramatically affect ecosystem recovery along a climatic gradient after extreme events in habitats where it is dominant. By its extremely slow regrowth and it preventing establishment of faster growing species, this study increases our knowledge on the possible outcomes when extreme events harm niche constructors in the tundra.
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spelling pubmed-78614412021-02-12 Niche construction mediates climate effects on recovery of tundra heathlands after extreme event González, Victoria T. Lindgård, Bente Reiersen, Rigmor Hagen, Snorre B. Bråthen, Kari Anne PLoS One Research Article Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events in northern ecosystems. The outcome of these events across the landscape, might be mediated by species effects, such as niche construction, with likely consequences on vegetation resilience. To test this hypothesis, we simulated an extreme event by removing aboveground vegetation in tundra heathlands dominated by the allelopathic dwarf shrub Empetrum nigrum, a strong niche constructor. We tested the hypothesis under different climate regimes along a 200-km long gradient from oceanic to continental climate in Northern Norway. We studied the vegetation recovery process over ten years along the climatic gradient. The recovery of E. nigrum and subordinate species was low and flattened out after five years at all locations along the climatic gradient, causing low vegetation cover at the end of the study in extreme event plots. Natural seed recruitment was low at all sites, however, the addition of seeds from faster growing species did not promote vegetation recovery. A soil bioassay from 8 years after the vegetation was removed, suggested the allelopathic effect of E. nigrum was still present in the soil environment. Our results provide evidence of how a common niche constructor species can dramatically affect ecosystem recovery along a climatic gradient after extreme events in habitats where it is dominant. By its extremely slow regrowth and it preventing establishment of faster growing species, this study increases our knowledge on the possible outcomes when extreme events harm niche constructors in the tundra. Public Library of Science 2021-02-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7861441/ /pubmed/33539380 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245929 Text en © 2021 González 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 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
González, Victoria T.
Lindgård, Bente
Reiersen, Rigmor
Hagen, Snorre B.
Bråthen, Kari Anne
Niche construction mediates climate effects on recovery of tundra heathlands after extreme event
title Niche construction mediates climate effects on recovery of tundra heathlands after extreme event
title_full Niche construction mediates climate effects on recovery of tundra heathlands after extreme event
title_fullStr Niche construction mediates climate effects on recovery of tundra heathlands after extreme event
title_full_unstemmed Niche construction mediates climate effects on recovery of tundra heathlands after extreme event
title_short Niche construction mediates climate effects on recovery of tundra heathlands after extreme event
title_sort niche construction mediates climate effects on recovery of tundra heathlands after extreme event
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7861441/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33539380
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245929
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