Fix‐it Felix: advances in testing plant facilitation as a restoration tool

Lortie, Christopher J.

doi:10.1111/avsc.12317

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Another important general outcome of this study is that abundance but not necessarily richness of other plant species is enhanced within the plant community. Frequently, facilitation between plants is assumed to be a panacea for desirable restoration outcomes within stressful or disturbed environments (Lortie, ). Understanding the species specificity of foundation plant species is thus a relevant avenue of ecological research in deserts because the effects of this relatively unique shrub species aligned well with similar research suggesting that there is the capacity for functional equivalency of shrubs as benefactors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Groot Effect: Plant facilitation and desert shrub regrowth following extensive damage

Lortie

Gruber

Filazzola

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Deserts are increasing in extent globally, but existing deserts are decreasing in health. The basic biology and ecology of foundation plant species in deserts are limited. This is a direct study that provides an estimate of the capacity for a locally dominant foundation shrub species in California to recover from damage. Desert shrubs are cleared and damaged by humans for many purposes including agriculture, oil and gas production, and sustainable energy developments; we need to know whether foundation species consistently facilitate the abundance and diversity of other plants in high‐stress ecosystems and whether they can recover. A total of 20 Ephedra californica shrubs were clipped to the ground at a single site and systematically resampled for regrowth 2 years later. These shrubs were damaged once and regrew rapidly, and relatively, larger shrubs were not more resilient. This study provides evidence for what we termed the “Groot Effect” because smaller individuals of this shrub species can recover from significant aboveground damage and continue to have positive effects on other plant species (similar to the popular culture reference to a benefactor tree species). The density of other plant species was consistently facilitated while effects on diversity varied with season. These findings confirm that E. californica is a foundation species that can be an important restoration tool within the deserts of California in spite of extreme cycles of drought and physical damage to its canopy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Frequently, facilitation between plants is assumed to be a panacea for desirable restoration outcomes within stressful or disturbed environments (Lortie, 2017 Linear-mixed models with a Satterthwaite approximation for degrees of freedom were used with year as nested, random effect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Groot Effect: Plant facilitation and desert shrub regrowth following extensive damage

Lortie

Gruber

Filazzola

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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“…We detected a remarkable variation in the extent of involvement of the nurses in the interaction network, which correlates well with the idea that a nurse species is not necessarily a good benefactor for any facilitated species (Landero & Valiente‐Banuet, ; Paterno, Siqueira Filho, & Ganade, ). Instead, there is a species‐specificity in the nursing effect that hampers the selection of the appropriate nurse‐facilitated species pair (Lortie, ). Despite the variation in the frequency of interactions supported by each nurse, five nurse species alone accounted for the great majority (85%) of facilitative interactions, regardless of the developmental stage of facilitated species (Figures and ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using plant functional distances to select species for restoration of mining sites

Navarro‐Cano

Goberna

Verdú

2019

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Plant facilitation, an ecological interaction that benefits at least one species without harming the other, is increasingly used as a restoration tool. To restore degraded habitats under a facilitation framework, practitioners must correctly select both the benefactor (nurse) and the beneficiary (facilitated) species. Based on community assembly and species coexistence theory, we propose selecting plant species that largely differ in a suite of functional traits so that competition is minimized and facilitation maximized due to functional complementarity. To apply this guideline in a pilot restoration experiment performed in metalliferous mine tailings in South‐Eastern Spain, we first built the plant–plant facilitative interaction network naturally occurring in a set of 12 tailings. After characterizing each species with 20 morphological and physiological traits, we verified that facilitative interactions were predominantly established between functionally distant species. Then, we designed a sowing experiment combining 50 nurse‐facilitated species pairs separated by a wide range of functional distances. The success of seedling establishment significantly increased with the functional distance between the nurse and the facilitated plant species. Synthesis and applications. We encourage the use of ecological facilitation together with trait‐based species selection to design restoration programmes based on the principle of increasing functional distance between target species. This method may not only promote the restoration of the plant cover but also impact paramount ecosystem functions, thus being an efficient low‐cost restoration practice in abiotically stressful ecosystems.

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“…Increasingly, the theory of plant facilitation is frequently incorporated into restoration practice [ 50 ], yet facilitation as a restoration tool remains inadequately studied [ 51 ]. It is important to understand how the nature of plant interactions are affected by restoration treatments and underlying site conditions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restoring dryland old fields with native shrubs and grasses: Does facilitation and seed source matter?

et al. 2018

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Restoration of agricultural fields is challenging, especially in arid and semi-arid ecosystems. We conducted experiments in two fields in the Great Basin, USA, which differed in cultivation history and fertility. We tested the effects of different levels of functional diversity (planting grasses and shrubs together, vs. planting shrubs alone), seed source (cultivars, local or distant wild-collections), and irrigation regime (spring or fall and spring) on restoration outcomes. We sowed either: 1) grasses and shrubs in year one, 2) shrubs only, in year one, 3) grasses in year one with herbicide, shrubs in year two, or 4) shrubs alone in year two, after a year of herbicide. We irrigated for two years and monitored for three years. Shrub emergence was highest in the lower fertility field, where increasing functional diversity by seeding grasses had a neutral or facilitative effect on shrub emergence. In the higher fertility field, increasing functional diversity appeared to have a neutral to competitive effect. After declines in shrub densities after irrigation ceased, these effects did not persist. Grasses initially suppressed or had a neutral effect on weeds relative to an unseeded control, but had neutral or facilitative effects on weeds relative to shrub-only seeding. Initially, commercial grasses were either equivalent to or outperformed wild-collected grasses, but after irrigation ceased, commercial grasses were outperformed by wild-collected grasses in the higher fertility field. Local shrubs initially outperformed distant shrubs, but this effect did not persist. Fall and spring irrigation combined with local shrubs and wild-collected grasses was the most successful strategy in the higher fertility field, while in the lower fertility field, irrigation timing had fewer effects. Superior shrub emergence and higher grass persistence indicated that the use of wild and local seed sources is generally warranted, whereas the effects of functional diversity and irrigation regime were context-dependent. A bet-hedging approach that uses a variety of strategies may maximize the chances of restoration success.

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Fix‐it Felix: advances in testing plant facilitation as a restoration tool

Cited by 8 publications

References 17 publications

The Groot Effect: Plant facilitation and desert shrub regrowth following extensive damage

The Groot Effect: Plant facilitation and desert shrub regrowth following extensive damage

Using plant functional distances to select species for restoration of mining sites

Restoring dryland old fields with native shrubs and grasses: Does facilitation and seed source matter?

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