No evidence of facilitation collapse in the Tibetan plateau

Pugnaire, Francisco I.; Zhang, Lin; Li, Ruicheng; Luo, Tianxiang

doi:10.1111/jvs.12233

Cited by 42 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(64 reference statements)

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“…In contrast, Pugnaire et al . () recently reported that the number of species associated with the cushion species Androsace tapete in the Himalayas is not higher than that found in open areas; indeed, they reported that at a lower elevation site, the number of species growing inside A. tapete cushions is lower than those found outside cushions (see de Bello et al . ; Dvorský et al .…”

Section: Facilitation and Species Richness At Patch Scalementioning

confidence: 95%

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Facilitation among plants as an insurance policy for diversity in Alpine communities

et al. 2015

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Summary 1.Positive interactions have started to gain a place as important drivers of community structure and biological diversity. Defined as non-trophic interspecific interactions that increase the average individual fitness of one species, by definition, the presence of one plant species enhances the chances that another species co-occur in the same place, indicating that positive interactions may determine biological diversity. However, this has been poorly explored. 2. The majority of the studies addressing community-level consequences of facilitation have compared the diversity of the plant assemblages growing within nurses vs. those growing outside them, reporting contrasting results among them. Nonetheless, nurses and their alternative microhabitats (open areas among nurses) are part of the same community. Thus, if nurses allow for the persistence of species that otherwise would be excluded from the community, a net increase in the species diversity at the entire community level will be generated even though nurse plants contained fewer species than open areas. 3. Here, we conducted a bibliographic search using the ISI Web of Knowledge data base and reviewed the literature conducted on alpine plant communities where assessments of the diversity of plants growing within and outside a nurse species were available. In most cases nurse species substantially increased species richness at the community level, despite the fact that in some cases, they contained lower species numbers than open areas. Nurse species enhanced species richness more in systems with impoverished local diversity, suggesting that facilitative interactions in alpine habitats act as an insurance policy that sustains diversity under very harsh conditions.

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Section: Facilitation and Species Richness At Patch Scalementioning

confidence: 95%

“…), others found either no differences (α cushion = α open : Pyšek & Liska ; Totland, Grytnes & Heegaard ; Pugnaire et al . ) or higher species richness outside the nurses (α cushion < α open : Cavieres et al . ; de Bello et al .…”

Section: Facilitation and Species Richness At Patch Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

Facilitation among plants as an insurance policy for diversity in Alpine communities

et al. 2015

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“…,b; Soliveres & Maestre ; Soliveres, Smit & Maestre ; and see Armas, Rodríguez‐Echeverría & Pugnaire ; Pugnaire et al . ). However, as Pakeman et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Facilitation in communities: underlying mechanisms, community and ecosystem implications

Michalet

Pugnaire

2016

Functional Ecology

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“…In high mountains with a cold and humid climate, facilitation by cushion plants has been generally found to increase linearly with increasing elevation, suggesting low‐temperature stress as driving factor of facilitation (Antonsson et al, ; Arroyo et al, ; Badano et al, ). In dry mountains, however, there are variable patterns of facilitation by cushions along elevation gradients, such as a decreasing trend in the central Chilean Andes (Cavieres et al, ); a nonlinear pattern in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Spain (Schöb et al, ), and in the Tibetan Plateau (Pugnaire et al, ); and the absence of facilitation with elevation in the western trans‐Himalayas (Dvorský et al, ). These inconsistent patterns suggest that many environmental factors (not just temperature) vary with elevation, and higher elevations may not always represent a more stressful environment leading to facilitation by cushions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In arid and semiarid regions, soil water availability can be a crucial limiting factor for plant growth and survival (Walker et al, ; Wang et al, ) and therefore may also substantially drive facilitation along elevation gradients (Anthelme et al, ; Cavieres et al, ; Schöb et al, ). However, there is scant evidence on the role of water availability in plant interactions at high elevations (Cavieres et al, ; Pugnaire et al, ), possibly because precipitation (the main driver of soil water availability) may vary inconsistently with elevation and the gradient of environmental severity cannot be generally defined (Körner, ; McCain & Grytnes, ). Moreover, long‐term records of precipitation and soil moisture are hardly available in remote mountains.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Shortage Drives Interactions Between Cushion and Beneficiary Species Along Elevation Gradients in Dry Himalayas

Ale

Zhang

et al. 2018

JGR Biogeosciences

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It is challenging to understand the drivers of plant‐plant interaction patterns in dry mountains. However, such knowledge is important to assess alpine ecosystem resilience to climate change. In water‐limited ecosystems, leaf δ13C and satellite‐derived vegetation index (NDVI) may serve as reliable indicators of environmental severity to address plant responses to water availability. We hypothesized that in dry mountains, interaction intensity between cushion and beneficiary species increases with increasing δ13C and decreasing NDVI regardless of elevation, indicating the importance of water availability in driving plant interactions. We used relative interaction indices (RII) of species and individual numbers within and outside the canopy of three cushion plant species along three elevational transects in dry Himalayas, Nepal. Site‐specific NDVI was calculated from 30 m Landsat images. Thornthwaite moisture index was calculated for each elevation site. We observed nonlinear patterns in RII, δ13C, and NDVI with elevation. Intraspecific variation of δ13C was negatively correlated with moisture index and NDVI, while NDVI across sites was positively correlated with precipitation but not with temperature. RII within a cushion species was positively correlated with δ13C and negatively with NDVI when the effect of elevation was removed. In pooled data across cushion species and sites, RII was negatively correlated with precipitation and NDVI when the effect of temperature was removed. RII was uncorrelated with cushion size under the same environment. Leaf nitrogen showed no correlation with RII or δ13C. Our data show that water shortage is the main driver of plant interactions in the alpine belt of dry Himalayas.

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No evidence of facilitation collapse in the Tibetan plateau

Abstract: Abbreviations BLH = Beiluhe; TTG = Tanggula; TTH = Tuotuohe; XDT = Xidatang; RII = relative interaction index; SGH = stress gradient hypothesis Nomenclature

Cited by 42 publications

References 50 publications

Facilitation among plants as an insurance policy for diversity in Alpine communities

Facilitation among plants as an insurance policy for diversity in Alpine communities

Facilitation in communities: underlying mechanisms, community and ecosystem implications

Water Shortage Drives Interactions Between Cushion and Beneficiary Species Along Elevation Gradients in Dry Himalayas

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