Local drivers of heterogeneity in a tropical forest: epiphytic tank bromeliads affect the availability of soil resources and conditions and indirectly affect the structure of seedling communities

Pereira, ThÁles Augusto; Vieira, Simone A.; Oliveira, Rafael S.; Antiqueira, Pablo A. P.; Migliorini, Gustavo H.; Romero, Gustavo Q.

doi:10.1007/s00442-022-05179-8

Cited by 9 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These include families like Bromeliaceae and Nepenthaceae that have developed tank-like leaf structures which can fill with precipitation or condensation, litter, organisms, and the plant's own excretions (Zotz, 2016). These phytotelmata have been reported to overflow under modest rainfall conditions (Benavides-Gordillo et al, 2019;Srivastava et al, 2020), e.g., during storms that exceed ∼12 mm (Pereira et al, 2022), and may, therefore, contribute their waters (and associated signals) to stemflow frequently. Phytotelmata may appear modest in volume, ranging from 2 to 5,000 ml capacity tank −1 (Zotz and Thomas, 1999;Zotz et al, 2020); however, tropical tank bromeliads alone have been estimated to store 40,000-50,000 L ha −1 (Fish, 1983;Cogliatti-Carvalho et al, 2010) and to overflow >100 days each year (Pereira et al, 2022).…”

Section: Canopy Floramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Phytotelmata overflow may contribute chemical and biological signals to stemflow indicating how these plants affect the canopy nutrient balance, microclimate and ecology. For example, it has recently been hypothesized from throughfall chemistry observations collected immediately beneath tank bromeliads that spill-over waters could be responsible for increased concentrations of not only plant-derived N and P, but Ca from small crustacean inhabitants (Pereira et al, 2022). These chemical signals appear to be large enough to influence soil chemistry patterns at the surface (Pereira et al, 2022).…”

Section: Canopy Floramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, it has recently been hypothesized from throughfall chemistry observations collected immediately beneath tank bromeliads that spill-over waters could be responsible for increased concentrations of not only plant-derived N and P, but Ca from small crustacean inhabitants (Pereira et al, 2022). These chemical signals appear to be large enough to influence soil chemistry patterns at the surface (Pereira et al, 2022). It is plausible that these signals will not only be in throughfall, but also in stemflow, because phytotelma overflows can contribute to the branchflows that become stemflow and many epiphytes reside on tree stems where they directly interact with stemflow (Chen et al, 2019).…”

Section: Canopy Floramentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Conceptual analysis: What signals might plant canopies send via stemflow?

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As watersheds are complex systems that are difficult to directly study, the streams that drain them are often sampled to search for watershed “signals.” These signals include the presence and/or abundance of isotopes, types of sediment, organisms (including pathogens), chemical compounds associated with ephemeral biogeochemical processes or anthropogenic impacts, and so on. Just like watersheds can send signals via the streams that drain from them, we present a conceptual analysis that suggests plant canopies (equally complex and hard-to-study systems) may send similar signals via the precipitation that drains down their stems (stemflow). For large, tall, hard-to-access tree canopies, this portion of precipitation may be modest, often <2%; however, stemflow waters, like stream waters, scour a large drainage network which may allow stemflow to pick up various signals from various processes within and surrounding canopies. This paper discusses some of the signals that the canopy environment may impart to stemflow and their relevance to our understanding of vegetated ecosystems. Being a conceptual analysis, some examples have been observed; most are hypothetical. These include signals from on-canopy biogeochemical processes, seasonal epi-faunal activities, pathogenic impacts, and the physiological activities of the canopy itself. Given stemflow's currently limited empirical hydrological, ecological and biogeochemical relevance to date (mostly due to its modest fraction in most forest water cycles), future work on the possible “signals in stemflow” may also motivate more natural scientists and, perhaps some applied researchers, to rigorously monitor this oft-ignored water flux.

show abstract

Section: Canopy Floramentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Canopy Floramentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Canopy Floramentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Conceptual analysis: What signals might plant canopies send via stemflow?

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Vascular epiphytes are plants that rely on a host, usually a tree or a bush, without feeding directly from it, as parasitic plants do (Benzing 1990). These plants represent 9% of vascular ora (Zotz 2013) and play important roles in ecosystem functions, participating in hydrological and nutrient cycles (Gotsch et al 2016; Hargis et al 2019; Mendieta-Leiva et al 2020; Pereira et al 2022). Furthermore, vascular epiphytes increase the biodiversity of tropical ecosystem (Gentry and Dodson 1987;Catchpole et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First steps to study the demography of vascular epiphytes in cities

Mondragón

Mora-Flores

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Urban ecosystems could jeopardize the existence of vascular epiphytes (VS), given that their occurrence is linked to phorophyte availability and particular climatic conditions. Despite reports of VS in cities, nothing is known about their demography. A first step in this direction is to describe their population structures (PS). We established the PS of VS present in urban parks in Oaxaca City, addressing the following questions: what is their demographic status? and are there differences in the structure of populations growing in native versus exotic phorophytes? During 2021, we censused all the trees in six urban parks, recording their origin (native or exotic), the epiphytic species found on them and the development stages present in each VS population. Overall, five VS species were documented: Tillandsia ionantha, T. makoyana, T. sp, T. recurvata and T. schiedeana; the first three with only one individual and the latter two with 5,694 and 95, respectively. A MANOVA test indicated significant differences in PS between T. recurvata (type I structure, suggesting a growing population) and T. schiedeana (type III structure, suggesting a senile population) (Wilkes' λ = 0.821, F-Radio = 11.96 P < 0.001). PS showed no differences related to tree origin. Our results indicate that it is necessary to conduct demographic studies to have a more accurate idea of the current condition of vascular epiphytes in cities. For instance, even though we found five VS species, only one of them seems to have viable populations in Oaxaca city.

show abstract

“…The application of overlap-type measures is popular among ecologists (e.g. for convex hulls: Braghin et al 2013, Lindholm et al 2020, Abedi et al 2022; for dynamic range boxes: Cai et al 2021, Pereira et al 2022; for Gaussian kernels: Benavides et al 2019, Lamanna et al 2021, Ajal et al 2022; for trait probability density functions: Wong et al 2020, de Bello et al 2021b, Carmona et al 2021). For software availability, see the hypervolume (Blonder et al 2022), betapart (Baselga et al 2022), TPD (Carmona 2019) and BAT (Cardoso et al 2022) packages.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A guide to between-community functional dissimilarity measures

Lengyel

Botta‐Dukát

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the recent years a variety of indices have been proposed with the aim of quantifying functional dissimilarity between communities. These indices follow different approaches to account for between-species similarities in the calculation of community dissimilarity, yet they all have been proposed as straightforward tools.In this paper we reviewed the trait-based dissimilarity indices available in the literature, contrasted the approaches they follow, and evaluated their performance in terms of correlation with an underlying environmental gradient using individual-based community simulations with different gradient lengths. We tested how strongly dissimilarities calculated by different indices correlate with environmental distances. Using random forest models we tested the importance of gradient length, the choice of data type (abundance vs. presence/absence), the transformation of between-species similarities (linear vs. exponential), and the dissimilarity index in the predicting correlation value.We found that many indices behave very similarly and reach high correlation with environmental distances. There were only a few indices (e.g. Rao’s DQ, and representatives of the nearest neighbour approach) which performed regularly poorer than the others. By far the strongest determinant of correlation with environmental distance was the gradient length, followed by the data type. The dissimilarity index and the transformation method seemed not crucial decisions when correlation with an underlying gradient is to be maximized.Synthesis: We provide a framework of functional dissimilarity indices and discuss the approaches they follow. Although, these indices are formulated in different ways and follow different approaches, most of them perform similarly well. At the same time, sample properties (e.g. gradient length) determine the correlation between trait-based dissimilarity and environmental distance more fundamentally.

show abstract

Local drivers of heterogeneity in a tropical forest: epiphytic tank bromeliads affect the availability of soil resources and conditions and indirectly affect the structure of seedling communities

Cited by 9 publications

References 46 publications

Conceptual analysis: What signals might plant canopies send via stemflow?

Conceptual analysis: What signals might plant canopies send via stemflow?

First steps to study the demography of vascular epiphytes in cities

A guide to between-community functional dissimilarity measures

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About