Sources of Diversity in a Grassland Metacommunity: Quantifying the Contribution of Dispersal to Species Richness

Vandvik,; Goldberg,

doi:10.2307/3844722

Cited by 16 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Recently, Alexander et al () pointed out that disentangling the role of seed banks in community and population dynamics is essential for our general understanding of basic ecological patterns and processes. For example, understanding the relative importance of ‘dispersal through time’ through seed banks versus long‐distance dispersal through space is essential for understanding metapopulation dynamics and metacommunity assembly (Vandvik and Goldberg ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Seed banks are biodiversity reservoirs: species–area relationships above versus below ground

Vandvik

Klanderud

Meineri

et al. 2015

Oikos

102

114

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Soil seed banks offer plants the possibility to disperse through time. This has implications for population and community dynamics, as recognised by ecological and evolutionary theory. In contrast, the conservation and restoration literature often find seed banks to be depauperate, weedy and without much conservation value or restoration potential. One explanation for these contrasting views might lie in a systematic bias in the sampling of seed banks versus established plant communities. We use the species-area relationship as a tool to assess and compare the per-area species richness and spatial structuring of the diversity of the established plant community versus soil seed banks. To allow this direct comparison we extensively survey the species-area relationship of the vegetation and underlying seed bank of a grassland community across twelve sites spanning regional bioclimatic gradients. We also compile a global dataset of established vegetation and seed banks from published sources. We find that seed banks have consistently higher intercepts and slopes of the relationship, and hence higher diversity at any given spatial scale, than the vegetation both in the field and literature study. This is consistent across habitat types, climate gradients, and biomes. Similarity indices are commonly used to compare vegetation and seed bank, and we find that sampling effort (% of the vegetation area sampled for seed bank) was the strongest predictor of vegetation-seed bank similarity for both the Sørensen (R 2  0.70) and the Raup-Crick (R 2  0.25) index. Our study suggests that the perception that seed banks are intrinsically less diverse than established plant communities has been based more on inadequate sampling than on biological reality. Across a range of ecosystems and climatic settings, we find high diversity in seed banks relative to the established community, suggesting potentially important roles of seed banks in population dynamics and diversity maintenance.

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confidence: 99%

Seed banks are biodiversity reservoirs: species–area relationships above versus below ground

Vandvik

Klanderud

Meineri

et al. 2015

Oikos

102

114

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“…In spatially discrete habitats, dispersal is a key process linking multiple spatial scales and is an important mechanism leading to colonization and maintenance of diversity within spatially-structured communities (Mouquet and Loreau 2003). Although, empirical findings suggest current metacommunity paradigms (Leibold et al 2004) do not yet satisfactorily explain dynamics in patch systems (Vandvik and Goldberg 2006, Ellis et al 2006, Vanschoenwinkel et al 2007). Although, empirical findings suggest current metacommunity paradigms (Leibold et al 2004) do not yet satisfactorily explain dynamics in patch systems (Vandvik and Goldberg 2006, Ellis et al 2006, Vanschoenwinkel et al 2007).…”

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confidence: 99%

Scale dependent diversity patterns in arboreal and terrestrial oribatid mite (Acari: Oribatida) communities

Lindo

Winchester²

2007

Ecography

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In naturally fragmented, isolated, or patchily distributed habitats that contain non-vagile organisms, we expect dispersal to be limited, and patterns of diversity to differ from similar, yet continuous habitats. We explored the alpha-beta-gamma relationship and community composition of oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida) inhabiting spatially discrete canopy suspended soils, and compared the patterns of diversity with the continuous forest floor soils over two years. We explored dispersal limitation for oribatid mites in the canopy by using additive partitioning of species richness at multiple spatial scales. ANOSIM was used to demonstrate differences in oribatid mite community composition between the canopy and forest floor habitats over different sampling periods. Community composition of oribatid mites differed significantly between canopy and forest floor habitats, by season and yearly sampling period. Oribatid mite richness and abundance were positively correlated with substrate moisture content, particularly in the canopy. Richness and abundance of ground oribatid mites was greater in September than in June, a trend that is reversed in the canopy, suggesting canopy oribatid mite species may have altered life histories to take advantage of earlier moisture conditions. Alpha diversity of oribatid mites in the canopy was lower than the ground at all sampling levels, and not significantly different from a random distribution in either habitat. Beta diversity was greater than expected from a random distribution at the patch-and treelevel in the canopy suggesting dispersal limitation associated with physical tree-to-tree dispersal barriers, and limited dispersal among patches within a tree. Beta diversity at the tree-level was the largest contribution to overall species richness in both canopy and ground habitats, and was also greater than expected on the ground. These results suggest that factors other than physical dispersal barriers, such as aggregation, habitat availability, and environmental factors (moisture), may limit the distribution of species in both habitats.

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“…three or more traits are involved) that are even more difficult to detect (Moles and Westoby 2006;Clark et al 2007). Experimental studies of plant species co-existence are typically based on systematic variations of single plant traits only, while other factors are held constant (Arii and Parrott 2006;Vandvik and Goldberg 2006). In addition, the short duration of most empirical studies makes it difficult to assess the importance of trade-offs on diversity and species richness-which arise from interactions, potentially across many generations (Bampfylde et al 2005).…”

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confidence: 99%

Low-dimensional trade-offs fail to explain richness and structure in species-rich plant communities

et al. 2010

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Mathematical models and ecological theory suggest that low-dimensional life history trade-offs (i.e. negative correlation between two life history traits such as competition vs. colonisation) may potentially explain the maintenance of species diversity and community structure. In the absence of trade-offs, we would expect communities to be dominated by 'super-types' characterised by mainly positive trait expressions. However, it has proven difficult to find strong empirical evidence for such trade-offs in species-rich communities. We developed a spatially explicit, rule-based and individual-based stochastic model to explore the importance of low-dimensional trade-offs. This model simulates the community dynamics of 288 virtual plant functional types (PFTs), each of which is described by seven life history traits. We consider trait combinations that fit into the trade-off concept, as well as super-types with little or no energy constraints or resource limitations, and weak PFTs, which do not exploit resources efficiently. The model is parameterised using data from a fire-prone, species-rich Mediterranean-type shrubland in southwestern Australia. We performed an exclusion experiment, where we sequentially removed the strongest PFT in the simulation and studied the remaining communities. We analysed the impact of traits on performance of PFTs in the exclusion experiment with standard and boosted regression trees. Regression tree analysis of the simulation results showed that the trade-off concept is necessary for PFT viability in the case of weak trait expression combinations such as low seed production or small seeds. However, species richness and diversity can be high despite the presence of super-types. Furthermore, the exclusion of super-types does not necessarily lead to a large increase in PFT richness and diversity. We conclude that low-dimensional trade-offs do not provide explanations for multi-species co-existence contrary to the prediction of many conceptual models.

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Sources of Diversity in a Grassland Metacommunity: Quantifying the Contribution of Dispersal to Species Richness

Cited by 16 publications

References 29 publications

Seed banks are biodiversity reservoirs: species–area relationships above versus below ground

Seed banks are biodiversity reservoirs: species–area relationships above versus below ground

Scale dependent diversity patterns in arboreal and terrestrial oribatid mite (Acari: Oribatida) communities

Low-dimensional trade-offs fail to explain richness and structure in species-rich plant communities

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