SPECIES RESPONSES TO NITROGEN FERTILIZATION IN HERBACEOUS PLANT COMMUNITIES, AND ASSOCIATED SPECIES TRAITS<b><i>Ecological Archives</i>E089-070</b>

Cleland, Elsa E.; Clark, Chris M.; Collins, Scott L.; Fargione, Joseph; Gough, Laura; Gross, Katherine L.; Milchunas, Daniel G.; Pennings, Steven C.; Bowman, William D.; Burke, Ingrid C.; Lauenroth, William K.; Robertson, G. Philip; Simpson, J.C.; Tilman, David; Suding, Katharine N.

doi:10.1890/07-1104.1

Cited by 20 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…At some sites, fertilization experiments were conducted in multiple community types or additional manipulations such as water addition or mowing were included as separate "experiments" in the study design, allowing us to evaluate the eVects of fertilization across a wide range of environmental parameter space. In all comparisons, we were examining how species abundances changed in response to N-addition and compare results to the appropriate "control" treatment to which no N was added (details in ESM 1 and Cleland et al 2008). Although species richness and composition diVer across sites, species of all six growth forms occurred in almost all sites and experiments (ESM 1).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To examine the combined eVects of clonal growth form and height on species response to fertilization, we created six height-clonal growth form categories based on the morphology of species growing in plots that did not receive added N in each experiment (data published in Cleland et al 2008). Each species was classiWed into one of three clonal growth forms that reXected diVerences in lateral spread (non-clonal, runner, or clumper) and one of two height categories [tall (the top third of the canopy relative to the maximum in that community) or short (the bottom two-thirds of the canopy)].…”

Section: Electronic Supplementary Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Incorporating clonal growth form clarifies the role of plant height in response to nitrogen addition

et al. 2012

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Nutrient addition to grasslands consistently causes species richness declines and productivity increases. Competition, particularly for light, is often assumed to produce this result. Using a long-term dataset from North American herbaceous plant communities, we tested whether height and clonal growth form together predict responses to fertilization because neither trait alone predicted species loss in a previous analysis. Species with a tall-runner growth form commonly increased in relative abundance in response to added nitrogen, while short species and those with a tall-clumped clonal growth form often decreased. The ability to increase in size via vegetative spread across space, while simultaneously occupying the canopy, conferred competitive advantage, although typically only the abundance of a single species within each height-clonal growth form significantly responded to fertilization in each experiment. Classifying species on the basis of two traits (height and clonal growth form) increases our ability to predict species responses to fertilization compared to either trait alone in predominantly herbaceous plant communities. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00442-012-2264-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Electronic Supplementary Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating clonal growth form clarifies the role of plant height in response to nitrogen addition

et al. 2012

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“…We compiled data from four experimental studies of water addition in grassland or mixed shrubland ⁄ grassland systems that ranged widely in their baseline precipitation (drawn from the dataset assembled by Cleland et al, 2008). These studies were conducted at Konza Tallgrass Prairie, a Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Kansas (Knapp et al, 2001), the Shortgrass Steppe LTER in northern Colorado, the Sevilleta LTER in New Mexico (S Baez et al, unpublished) and Jasper Ridge in California (Zavaleta et al, 2003).…”

Section: Experimental Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These traits included carbon assimilation and nitrogen per unit mass (A mass , N mass ) and area (A area , N area ), as well as specific leaf area (SLA) and leaf life span (LL). Finally, we used plant height data from Cleland et al (2008), which were available only for species at the experimental sites. Here, height was a categorical variable, where species were described as typically reaching the lower, middle or upper third of the vegetation canopy.…”

Section: Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting trait responses in plant communities to experimental and geographic variation in precipitation

et al. 2010

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Summary Patterns of precipitation are likely to change significantly in the coming century, with important but poorly understood consequences for plant communities. Experimental and correlative studies may provide insight into expected changes, but little research has addressed the degree of concordance between these approaches. We synthesized results from four experimental water addition studies with a correlative analysis of community changes across a large natural precipitation gradient in the United States. We investigated whether community composition, summarized with plant functional traits, responded similarly to increasing precipitation among studies and sites. In field experiments, increased precipitation favored species with small seed size, short leaf life span and high leaf nitrogen (N) concentration. However, with increasing precipitation along the natural gradient, community composition shifted towards species with higher mean seed mass, longer leaf life span and lower leaf N concentrations. The differences in temporal and spatial scale of experimental manipulations and natural gradients may explain these contrasting results. Our results highlight the complexity of responses to climate change, and suggest that transient dynamics may not reflect long‐term shifts in functional diversity and community composition. We propose a model of community change that incorporates these differences between short‐ and long‐term responses to climate change.

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“…We constructed trait groups using a published trait database that included species from KPBS (Cleland et al 2008). The traits included life history strategy (annual, biennial, or perennial), detailed life form (C 3 grass, C 4 grass, leguminous forb, non-leguminous forb, evergreen shrub, or deciduous shrub), height within the canopy, clonality, and nativity.…”

Section: Trait Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire and grazing in a mesic tallgrass prairie: impacts on plant species and functional traits

Spasojevic

Aicher

Koch

et al. 2010

Ecology

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Abstract. Fire is a globally distributed disturbance that impacts terrestrial ecosystems and has been proposed to be a global ''herbivore.'' Fire, like herbivory, is a top-down driver that converts organic materials into inorganic products, alters community structure, and acts as an evolutionary agent. Though grazing and fire may have some comparable effects in grasslands, they do not have similar impacts on species composition and community structure. However, the concept of fire as a global herbivore implies that fire and herbivory may have similar effects on plant functional traits. Using 22 years of data from a mesic, native tallgrass prairie with a long evolutionary history of fire and grazing, we tested if trait composition between grazed and burned grassland communities would converge, and if the degree of convergence depended on fire frequency. Additionally, we tested if eliminating fire from frequently burned grasslands would result in a state similar to unburned grasslands, and if adding fire into a previously unburned grassland would cause composition to become more similar to that of frequently burned grasslands. We found that grazing and burning once every four years showed the most convergence in traits, suggesting that these communities operate under similar deterministic assembly rules and that fire and herbivory are similar disturbances to grasslands at the trait-group level of organization. Three years after reversal of the fire treatment we found that fire reversal had different effects depending on treatment. The formerly unburned community that was then burned annually became more similar to the annually burned community in trait composition suggesting that function may be rapidly restored if fire is reintroduced. Conversely, after fire was removed from the annually burned community trait composition developed along a unique trajectory indicating hysteresis, or a time lag for structure and function to return following a change in this disturbance regime. We conclude that functional traits and species-based metrics should be considered when determining and evaluating goals for fire management in mesic grassland ecosystems.

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SPECIES RESPONSES TO NITROGEN FERTILIZATION IN HERBACEOUS PLANT COMMUNITIES, AND ASSOCIATED SPECIES TRAITSEcological ArchivesE089-070

Cited by 20 publications

References 0 publications

Incorporating clonal growth form clarifies the role of plant height in response to nitrogen addition

Incorporating clonal growth form clarifies the role of plant height in response to nitrogen addition

Contrasting trait responses in plant communities to experimental and geographic variation in precipitation

Fire and grazing in a mesic tallgrass prairie: impacts on plant species and functional traits

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