Dissecting the hydrological niche: soil moisture, space and lifespan

García‐Baquero, Gonzalo; Silvertown, Jonathan; Gowing, David; Valle, Cipriano J.

doi:10.1111/jvs.12353

Cited by 31 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Following Hutchinson, a species' fundamental niche space is narrowed to a realized niche by interspecific competition and natural enemies (Silvertown 2004). More recently, hydrological gradients have been studied extensively, and interspecific differentiation in niches has been further demonstrated (Silvertown et al 1999; Bartelheimer et al 2010;Araya et al 2011;García-Baquero et al 2016). From an ecophysiological viewpoint, this clear separation of species can be explained in terms of the challenges plants face along the hydrological gradient.…”

Section: Electronic Supplementary Materialsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Ellenberg’s water table experiment put to the test: species optima along a hydrological gradient

Bartelheimer

Poschlod

2016

Oecologia

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An important aspect of niche theory is the position of species' optima along ecological gradients. It is widely believed that a species' ecological optimum takes its shape only under competitive pressure. The ecological optimum, therefore, is thought to differ from the physiological optimum in the absence of interspecific competition. Ellenberg's Hohenheim water table experiment has been very influential in this context. However, the water table gradient in Ellenberg's experiment was produced by varying the soil thickness above the water table, which confounded the potentially disparate impacts of water table depth (WTD) and soil depth on species growth. Accordingly, here we have re-evaluated Ellenberg's work. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that physiological and ecological optima are identical and unaffected by interspecific interaction. We used the same six grasses as in Ellenberg's experiments, but in our mesocosms, WTD was varied but soil depth kept constant. The design included both an additive component (with/without plant interaction) and a substitutive component (monocultures vs. species mixtures). The results show that the physiological optima along the hydrological gradient varied greatly between species, even in the absence of interspecific interaction. Within species, however, physiological and ecological optima appeared identical in most cases, irrespective of the competition treatment. We conclude that the 'physiological capacity' of species largely determines where they are able to persist and that any impact of interspecific interaction is only marginal. These findings are at variance with Ellenberg's rule, where competition is considered to shift the distribution of a species away from its physiological optimum.

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Section: Electronic Supplementary Materialsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Ellenberg’s water table experiment put to the test: species optima along a hydrological gradient

Bartelheimer

Poschlod

2016

Oecologia

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“…A key difficulty with measuring both niche availability for single species and niche partitioning among species is that the measurements often rely on identifying the relevant axes along which species might differ in their niche requirements (Silvertown & Law, ; Tilman, ). While there is strong evidence that niche partitioning along environmental gradients allows species to co‐occur (García‐Baquero, Silvertown, Gowing, & Valle, ; Pickett & Bazzaz, ; Rees, ; Tilman, ), co‐occurring species often also show substantial niche overlap (Berdugo et al., ; Mahdi, Law, & Willis, ). Species with niches that appear to overlap along a specific gradient may co‐occur because one or both species is dispersal limited (Soberon, ), but might also co‐occur because they partition niches along other, unidentified niches axes (Silvertown, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying niche availability, niche overlap and competition for recruitment sites in plant populations without explicit knowledge of niche axes

2019

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Niche availability, niche overlap and competitive ability are key determinants of the distribution and abundance of species. However, quantifying each of these components is difficult because it is not always possible to identify or measure relevant environmental gradients (niche axes) along which species might partition or compete for niche space. We describe a method that uses seed addition experiments to quantify the number of ‘safe‐sites’ (microsites suitable for a species to recruit from seed) at a location and show how this method can be used to quantify niche availability, niche overlap and competitive ability. We illustrate our approach using two seed addition experiments in grassland. In the first experiment, we added seeds of one native and two exotic grass species, alone and in mixture, to plots that were arrayed along a gradient of soil moisture availability. We show that the three species partitioned safe‐sites, implying that all three species could locally co‐occur through niche partitioning, in part due to different responses to moisture availability. In the second experiment, we added seeds of three commonly co‐occurring native grass species, alone and in mixture, to plots with no obvious environmental gradients. One species out‐competed two others for site occupancy, allowing us to quantify both the degree of niche overlap and the relative ability of each species to compete for safe‐site occupancy without a priori knowledge of the niche axes. Results from both experiments demonstrate the fine‐scales at which species can partition niches to facilitate co‐occurrence. Synthesis. By conceptualising a plot of ground as containing a limited number of microsites that are safe for the recruitment of a given species, and using seed addition experiments to measure both the number of safe‐sites and degree of safe‐site overlap among species, we show how niche availability, niche overlap and competitive ability can be quantified at fine‐scales without a priori knowledge of niche axes. Our approach allows questions about niche availability and competition for shared niche space to be empirically tested, and to examine how these processes vary along environmental gradients to shape species distributions and patterns of co‐occurrence.

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“…by C3, C4 and CAM phytosynthesis (Keeley 1998) and in this way enable temporarily coexisting guilds (Angert et al 2009) or coexistance in spatially partitioned hydrological niches (Ellenberg 1953;García-Baquero et al 2015;Silvertown et al 2015). It has been shown that niche partitioning in local moisture gradients contributes importantly to plant diversity (Bauder 2000;Violle et al 2010).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…This is important because most plants grow separately in local gradients (e.g. García-Baquero, Silvertown, Gowing, & Valle 2015) and perceive varying risk levels according to their niche boundaries.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…For deserts, one single global variance in rainfall is sufficient to model evolution of soil seed banks (Clauss & Venable 2000;Venable 2007). However, in small-scale gradients of moisture, the response of plants to rainfall variability is less synchronous (García-Baquero et al 2015;Tielbörger & Petru 2008). In this case of uncorrelated local variances, when adjacent patches are different, seed dispersal is the optimal risk-reduction trait (Nathan & Muller-Landau 2000;Siewert & Tielbörger 2010;Snyder 2006;Venable & Brown 1988).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Seed bank, seed size and dispersal in moisture gradients of temporary pools in Southern France

Metzner

Gachet

Rocarpin

et al. 2017

Basic and Applied Ecology

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Dissecting the hydrological niche: soil moisture, space and lifespan

Cited by 31 publications

References 33 publications

Ellenberg’s water table experiment put to the test: species optima along a hydrological gradient

Ellenberg’s water table experiment put to the test: species optima along a hydrological gradient

Quantifying niche availability, niche overlap and competition for recruitment sites in plant populations without explicit knowledge of niche axes

Seed bank, seed size and dispersal in moisture gradients of temporary pools in Southern France

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