Plant communities on infertile soils may be relatively resistant to climatic variation if species in these communities have "stress-tolerant" functional traits that limit their ability to respond to climate. Alternatively, such communities may be more sensitive to climatic variation if their relatively sparse vegetative cover exposes species to more extreme changes in factors such as temperature or wind. We compared temporal variability in species richness and composition over 10 years between grasslands on infertile serpentine and "normal" sedimentary soils. Variability in species richness and species composition tracked mean annual precipitation on both soils, but variability was lower in serpentine grasslands. Communities on serpentine had lower functional diversity and had species with more "stress-tolerant" traits than non-serpentine communities (i.e., shorter stature, lower specific leaf area, and lower leaf area). Within and between soils, variability in species richness and temporal turnover were lower in communities scoring as more stress tolerant on a multivariate index of these traits; however, community variability was unrelated to functional diversity. Within 41 species found commonly on both soils, variability in occurrence and cover were also lower on serpentine soils, even though intraspecific trait differences between soils were minimal; this suggests a direct effect of soil type on species variability in addition to the indirect, trait-mediated effect. Communities with higher biomass had higher annual variability in species occurrence and cover. Our results suggest that infertile soils reduce compositional variability indirectly by selecting for stress-tolerant traits and directly by limiting productivity. We conclude that communities on infertile soils may respond more conservatively to predicted changes in precipitation, including increased variability, than communities on soils of normal fertility.
Summary1. Predicting and mitigating climate change effects on ecological communities is a tremendous challenge. Little attention has been given to how endemic-rich communities on isolated patches of low-nutrient soil (e.g. serpentine) will respond to climate change. 2. To address spatial factors (the isolated nature of outcrops), we incorporate habitat patchiness into species distribution models under climate change. The degree of overlap between current and future suitable habitat does not change when patchy habitats are incorporated, probably because serpentine occurs in mountainous regions where climatically and edaphically suitable regions geographically coincide. The dispersal distances required to move to newly suitable habitat are large, however, making successful migration unlikely. 3. To address how non-spatial factors affect the climate change responses of serpentine plant communities (e.g. the impacts of nutrient limitation and stress-tolerant functional traits), we conduct a literature review. Some studies suggest that serpentine communities may be at less risk than 'normal' soil communities due to their stress-tolerant functional traits, but there is also evidence to the contrary. 4. Synthesis. Assessing climate change risk for the world's diverse edaphic floras requires determining impacts on both special and 'normal' soil communities. Studies are needed that use functional traits, evaluate the role of evolutionary and ecological plasticity, examine responses across spatial and temporal scales and assess the efficacy of managed relocation efforts.
Spatially distinct communities can arise through interactions and feedbacks between abiotic and biotic factors. We suggest that, for plants, patches of infertile soils such as serpentine may support more distinct communities from those in the surrounding non-serpentine matrix in regions where the climate is more productive (i.e., warmer and/or wetter). Where both soil fertility and climatic productivity are high, communities may be dominated by plants with fast-growing functional traits, whereas where either soils or climate impose low productivity, species with stress-tolerant functional traits may predominate. As a result, both species and functional composition may show higher dissimilarity between patch and matrix in productive climates. This pattern may be reinforced by positive feedbacks, in which higher plant growth under favorable climate and soil conditions leads to higher soil fertility, further enhancing plant growth. For 96 pairs of sites across a 200-km latitudinal gradient in California, we found that the species and functional dissimilarities between communities on infertile serpentine and fertile non-serpentine soils were higher in more productive (wetter) regions. Woody species had more stress-tolerant functional traits on serpentine than non-serpentine soil, and as rainfall increased, woody species functional composition changed toward fast-growing traits on non-serpentine, but not on serpentine soils. Soil organic matter increased with rainfall, but only on non-serpentine soils, and the difference in organic matter between soils was positively correlated with plant community dissimilarity. These results illustrate a novel mechanism wherein climatic productivity is associated with higher species, functional, and landscape-level dissimilarity (beta diversity).
Abstract. Understanding the consequences of extreme climatic events is a growing challenge in ecology. Climatic extremes may differentially affect varying elements of biodiversity, and may not always produce ecological effects exceeding those of "normal" climatic variation in space and time. We asked how the extreme drought years of 2013-2014 affected the cover, species richness, functional trait means, functional diversity, and phylogenetic diversity of herbaceous plant communities across the California Floristic Province. We compared the directions and magnitudes of these drought effects with expectations from four "pre-drought" studies of variation in water availability: (1) a watering experiment, (2) a long-term (15-yr) monitoring of interannual variability, (3) a resampling of historic (57-yr-old) plots within a warming and drying region, and (4) natural variation in communities over a broad geographic gradient in precipitation. We found that the drought was associated with consistent reductions in species richness and cover, especially for annual forbs and exotic annual grasses, but not with changes in functional or phylogenetic diversity. Except for total cover and cover of exotic annual grasses, most drought effects did not exceed quantitative expectations based on the four pre-drought studies. Qualitatively, plant community responses to the drought were most concordant with responses to pre-drought interannual rainfall variability in the 15-yr monitoring study, and least concordant with responses to the geographic gradient in precipitation. Our results suggest that, at least in the short term, extreme drought may cause only a subset of community metrics to respond in ways that exceed normal background variability.
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