Spatial relationships between the standing vegetation and the soil seed bank in a fire-prone encroached dehesa in Central Spain

Torres, Iván; Céspedes, Blanca; Pérez, Beatriz; Moreno, José M.

doi:10.1007/s11258-012-0159-5

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, a study of vegetation development after fire in central Spain reports weaker spatial patterning in the seed bank relative to the corresponding standing vegetation. As this study is based on a traditional low-effort seed bank sampling (seed bank sampling effort of 1.02%, relative to the vegetation sampling, calculated from Torres et al 2013), our findings raise the question of if and to what extent these results may be driven simply by differences in power between the sampling methods employed above-versus below-ground.…”

Section: Seed Bank Samplingmentioning

confidence: 85%

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

Vandvik

Klanderud

Meineri

et al. 2015

Oikos

102

114

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Section: Seed Bank Samplingmentioning

confidence: 85%

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

Vandvik

Klanderud

Meineri

et al. 2015

Oikos

102

114

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This pattern was already present in Year 1, which may be due to several factors. First, prefire spatial patterns in community composition may have persisted with species that survived fire in the seed bank (Torres et al, 2013 ). An examination of aerial images from the mid‐20th century supports this hypothesis, with a marked gradient in vegetation structure being appreciated at the Valbermejo site (Torres, 2012 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Field sampling was carried out in June and July—after all species had flowered and/or set fruit—of the first, second, and third years after fire (from here on Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3). To explore diversity patterns in unburned vegetation, in 2006, an additional 40 × 40 m plot was selected in an unburned site adjacent to the fire perimeter, and 94 1 × 1 m quadrats were established as described in Torres et al ( 2013 ) (Figure 1 ). In each of the sampling quadrats, we recorded the presence/absence of all vascular species and visually estimated the cover of herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of spatial distance and woody plant cover on beta diversity point to dispersal limitation as a driver of community assembly during postfire succession in a Mediterranean shrubland

Torres

Parra

Moreno

2022

Ecology and Evolution

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Beta diversity, and its components of turnover and nestedness, reflects the processes governing community assembly, such as dispersal limitation or biotic interactions, but it is unclear how they operate at the local scale and how their role changes along postfire succession. Here, we analyzed the patterns of beta diversity and its components in a herbaceous plant community after fire, and in relation to dispersal ability, in Central Spain. We calculated multiple‐site beta diversity (β SOR ) and its components of turnover (β SIM ) and nestedness (β SNE ) of all herbaceous plants, or grouped by dispersal syndrome (autochory, anemochory, and zoochory), during the first 3 years after wildfire. We evaluated the relationship between pairwise beta diversity (β sor ), and its components (β sim , β sne ), and spatial distance or differences in woody plant cover, a proxy of biotic interactions. We found high multiple‐site beta diversity dominated by the turnover component. Community dissimilarity increased with spatial distance, driven mostly by the turnover component. Species with less dispersal ability (i.e., autochory) showed a stronger spatial pattern of dissimilarity. Biotic interactions with woody plants contributed less to community dissimilarity, which tended to occur through the nestedness component. These results suggest that dispersal limitation prevails over biotic interactions with woody plants as a driver of local community assembly, even for species with high dispersal ability. These results contribute to our understanding of postfire community assembly and vegetation dynamics.

show abstract

“…The focus species of this study is the keystone shrub Cistus ladanifer L., a perennial plant endemic to the Western Mediterranean region that dominates successional stages on acidic soils after disturbances like woodland clearing or fire. It is an obligate post-fire seeder, and seeds have physical dormancy that is broken by scarification such as mechanical abrasion or exposure to high temperatures [ 33 ]. It is an obligate outcrossing species with self-incompatibility that is pollinated by insects [ 43 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, fire activity, in particular large and high severity fires, are also projected to increase due to increased fire danger [ 28 – 30 ]. Mediterranean vegetation is resilient to fires by means of a series of fire-adaptive traits [ 31 ] that include resprouting and post-fire recruitment from seeds, which can be protected in seed-bearing structures in the canopy or stored in soil seed banks [ 32 , 33 ]. Since fire involves a selective pressure, genetic divergence can be expected in contrasting fire scenarios even in short time intervals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

No genetic adaptation of the Mediterranean keystone shrub Cistus ladanifer in response to experimental fire and extreme drought

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In Mediterranean ecosystems, climate change is projected to increase fire danger and summer drought, thus reducing post-fire recruitment of obligate seeder species, and possibly affecting the population genetic structure. We performed a genome-wide genetic marker study, using AFLP markers, on individuals from one Central Spain population of the obligate post-fire seeder Cistus ladanifer L. that established after experimental fire and survived during four subsequent years under simulated drought implemented with a rainout shelter system. We explored the effects of the treatments on marker diversity, spatial genetic structure and presence of outlier loci suggestive of selection. We found no effect of fire or drought on any of the genetic diversity metrics. Analysis of Molecular Variance showed very low genetic differentiation among treatments. Neither fire nor drought altered the small-scale spatial genetic structure of the population. Only one locus was significantly associated with the fire treatment, but inconsistently across outlier detection methods. Neither fire nor drought are likely to affect the genetic makeup of emerging C. ladanifer, despite reduced recruitment caused by drought. The lack of genetic change suggests that reduced recruitment is a random, non-selective process with no genome-wide consequences on this keystone, drought- and fire tolerant Mediterranean species.

show abstract

Spatial relationships between the standing vegetation and the soil seed bank in a fire-prone encroached dehesa in Central Spain

Cited by 9 publications

References 46 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

Effects of spatial distance and woody plant cover on beta diversity point to dispersal limitation as a driver of community assembly during postfire succession in a Mediterranean shrubland

No genetic adaptation of the Mediterranean keystone shrub Cistus ladanifer in response to experimental fire and extreme drought

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About