Species coexistence by front pinning

Kyriazopoulos, Paris; Nathan, Jonathan; Meron, Ehud

doi:10.1016/j.ecocom.2014.05.001

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Based on this, we propose that reversal in grazing effects on FD along water stress gradients may occur through increasing below-ground competition before above-ground competition becomes important. Our approach provides an integrative tool for studying community-level properties that is readily extendable to include spatial effects (Kyriazopoulos, Nathan & Meron 2014), such as self-organized patchiness and ecosystem engineering in woody-herbaceous communities (Gilad, Shachak & Meron 2007;Meron 2012).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking functional diversity to resource availability and disturbance: a mechanistic approach for water‐limited plant communities

et al. 2016

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Summary Functional diversity (FD) has become a principal concept for revealing mechanisms driving community assembly and ecosystem function. Multiple assembly processes, including abiotic filtering, competition and multi‐trophic relationships, operate simultaneously to structure FD. In water‐limited plant communities, FD is likely to reflect trade‐offs between drought resistance vs. disturbance resistance and competitive ability. We propose a mathematical mechanistic model for understanding the organization and function of water‐limited plant communities. The approach captures the interplay between abiotic filtering, below‐ and above‐ground competition and disturbance. We exploit this powerful model to uncover mechanisms underlying changes in functional diversity along stress gradients. Our approach links biomass production and FD to environmental conditions through plant resource capture ability. Functional groups are defined along a single trade‐off axis according to investment in capturing light (shoot) vs. water (root). Species growth rate is determined dynamically by the species traits, water availability and grazing stress. We derive biomass production, functional diversity and composition along precipitation and grazing gradients. Model's results revealed several regimes structuring FD along the precipitation gradient: ‘Struggle for water’ at low precipitation, ‘competition for water’ at intermediate precipitation and ‘competition for light’ at high precipitation. We observed a shift in grazing effect on FD from negative at very low precipitation, to positive at higher precipitation. Unimodal FD–grazing intensity relationship was observed under high precipitation, while under low precipitation, FD decreased moderately with increasing grazing intensity. Synthesis. Our model showcases how fundamental tradeoffs in plant traits may drive functional diversity and ecosystem function along environmental gradients. It offers a mechanism through which novel understandings can be obtained regarding the interplay between water stress, below‐ and above‐ground competition and disturbance intensity and history. We discuss further model testing possibilities as well as required empirical work.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking functional diversity to resource availability and disturbance: a mechanistic approach for water‐limited plant communities

et al. 2016

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“…The focus of attention has usually been on the population dynamics to address the possibility of extinction or invasion of particular species [6,14] and/or possible changes in the community structure [7,49]. However, the overall effect of the climate change on ecosystems is likely to be much broader and is not exhausted by changes in species ranges and biodiversity loss.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mathematical Modelling of Plankton–Oxygen Dynamics Under the Climate Change

2015

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Abstract. Ocean dynamics is known to have a strong effect the global climate change and on the composition of the atmosphere. In particular, it is estimated that about 70% of the atmospheric oxygen is produced in the oceans due to the photosynthetic activity of phytoplankton. However, the rate of oxygen production depends on water temperature and hence can be affected by the global warming. In this paper, we address this issue theoretically by considering a model of a coupled plankton-oxygen dynamics where the rate of oxygen production slowly changes with time to account for the ocean warming. We show that a sustainable oxygen production is only possible in an intermediate range of the production rate. If, in the course of time, the oxygen production rate becomes too low or too high, the system's dynamics changes abruptly resulting in the oxygen depletion and plankton extinction. Our results indicate that the depletion of atmospheric oxygen on global scale (which, if happens, obviously can kill most of life on Earth) is another possible catastrophic consequence of the global warming, a global ecological disaster that has been overlooked.

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“…In-phase spatial patterns are not the only context in which coexistence of plant species in patterned form is studied in mathematical models of dryland ecosystems. Alternatively, coexistence of species can occur through the existence of a multitude of localised patterns of one species in an otherwise uniform solution of a competitor (homoclinic snaking) [42] in a model that assumes a trade-off between root and shoot growth and the associated competition for water and light.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial self-organisation enables species coexistence in a model for savanna ecosystems

Eigentler

Sherratt

2020

Journal of Theoretical Biology

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The savanna biome is characterised by a continuous vegetation cover, comprised of herbaceous and woody plants. The coexistence of species in arid savannas, where water availability is the main limiting resource for plant growth, provides an apparent contradiction to the classical principle of competitive exclusion. Previous theoretical work using nonspatial models has focussed on the development of an understanding of coexistence mechanisms through the consideration of resource niche separation and ecosystem disturbances. In this paper, we propose that a spatial self-organisation principle, caused by a positive feedback between local vegetation growth and water redistribution, is sufficient for species coexistence in savanna ecosystems. We propose a spatiotemporal ecohydrological model of partial differential equations, based on the Klausmeier reaction-advection-diffusion model for vegetation patterns, to investigate the effects of spatial interactions on species coexistence on sloped terrain. Our results suggest that species coexistence is a possible model outcome, if a balance is kept between the species' average fitness (a measure of a species' competitive abilities in a spatially uniform setting) and their colonisation abilities. Spatial heterogeneities in resource availability are utilised by the superior coloniser (grasses), before it is outcompeted by the species of higher average fitness (trees). A stability analysis of the spatially nonuniform coexistence solutions further suggests that grasses act as ecosystem engineers and facilitate the formation of a continuous tree cover for precipitation levels unable to support a uniform tree density in the absence of a grass species.

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Species coexistence by front pinning

Cited by 14 publications

References 32 publications

Linking functional diversity to resource availability and disturbance: a mechanistic approach for water‐limited plant communities

Linking functional diversity to resource availability and disturbance: a mechanistic approach for water‐limited plant communities

Mathematical Modelling of Plankton–Oxygen Dynamics Under the Climate Change

Spatial self-organisation enables species coexistence in a model for savanna ecosystems

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