Topography-associated thermal gradient predicts warming effects on woody plant structural diversity in a subtropical forest

He, Siyan; Zhong, Yonglin; Sun, Yudan; Su, Zhiyao; Jia, Xiaorong; Hu, Yunfei; Zhou, Qing

doi:10.1038/srep40387

Cited by 24 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(56 reference statements)

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“…We used the plant as the sampling unit because individuals independently express their phenotypes (Archibald and Bond , He et al. ). The marginal effect of treatment was estimated by exponentiating the parameter coefficients (i.e., the odds ratios) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restoring the fire–grazing interaction promotes tree–grass coexistence by controlling woody encroachment

et al. 2020

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Woody encroachment can convert grasslands and savannas to shrublands and woodlands, so understanding the processes which regulate woody encroachment is necessary to conserve or restore these ecosystems. We hypothesized that recreating the fire–grazing interaction would limit woody encroachment because focal grazing increases fuel accumulation on unburned areas and increases browsing on emergent woody plants in burned areas. This study was conducted in the Grand River Grasslands of Iowa and Missouri (USA) on 11 sites (15.4–35.0 ha). Each site was assigned to one treatment: patch‐burn‐graze (n = 4), with spatially discrete prescribed fires and free access by cattle (the fire–grazing interaction); graze‐and‐burn (n = 4), with free access by cattle and one burn of the entire site every 3 yr; or burn‐only (n = 3), with one site‐wide burn every 3–5 yr and no grazing. The burn‐only treatment increased woody encroachment fourfold compared to the graze‐and‐burn and patch‐burn‐graze treatments (130.2, standard error [SE] = 16.0; 20.9, SE = 12.0; and 46.3, SE = 10.8; plants/200 m2). The patch‐burn‐graze treatment had 2–3 cm more accumulated fuel and woody plants which were 12% shorter, on average, than the other treatments (comparing eight common species). The movement of large herbivores also appeared to decrease the frequency of woody species which spread vegetatively. Our work illustrates how the fire–grazing interaction may control woody encroachment and shows that cattle substitute, at least partially, for endemic large herbivores.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restoring the fire–grazing interaction promotes tree–grass coexistence by controlling woody encroachment

et al. 2020

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“…To evaluate the effects of diversity metrics of both the canopy and understory communities on understory plant invasion, we tested the changes in diversity metrics for significance across invasion severity gradients using Kruskal-Wallis test. Kruskal-Wallis test, a nonparametric alternative to one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), is the appropriate method for comparing two or more independent samples or groups of equal or different sample sizes, especially for field ecology data [39].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community Attributes Predict the Relationship between Habitat Invasibility and Land Use Types in an Agricultural and Forest Landscape

Zhou

Zhong

et al. 2019

Forests

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Finding ecosystem or community level indicators for habitat invasibility may provide natural resource managers with environmentally friendly measures to control alien plant invasion; yet, ecosystem invasibility remains understudied. Here, we investigated alien plant invasion into various ecosystems representing different land use types in a subtropical peri-urban area of south China. Four invasive alien species were found from five out of the six ecosystems. Lower plant diversity in both the overstory and understory was consistently associated with more severe alien plant invasion to the ecosystems. The highest total abundance and plot occurrence of the invasive plants were found in the agroforestry ecosystem representing the highest disturbance. At plot scale, an increase in invasion severity was associated with a significant decrease in overstory stem density, species richness, and diversity, but with a significant increase in overstory plant dominance. The understory community attributes in response to the increase in invasion severity followed similar patterns, except that the stem density increased with invasion severity. Higher canopy openness and thus lower leaf area index and greater understory radiation were associated with higher invasion severity of invasive plants to the understory habitat. For predicting total abundance of the invasive species, the most important variable is land use type, while for the abundance of Lantana camara and Mikania micrantha, the most important predictor variable is overstory Berger–Parker index and canopy openness, respectively. Canopy structure and understory gap light regimes were among the most important factors determining the abundance of the worst invasive plant Mikania micrantha. Our results demonstrate that land use types with varying disturbance regimes determine the spatial heterogeneity in plant diversity and community structure, which predicts alien plant invasion and habitat invasibility; and that the severity of alien plant invasion in turn is a good indicator of habitat disturbance across the ecosystems.

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“…This area is alongside the Dongjiang River in the eastern part of South China s Guangdong province and has a humid subtropical monsoon climate. The mean annual temperature ranges from 20.3 • C to 21.1 • C and the mean annual precipitation is 2142 mm [23,24]. Soils are clay loamy latosols developed from granite.…”

Section: Study Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

“…To assess whether warming had significant effects on SOC, TN, and TP contents and C:N:P stoichiometric ratios, we performed Kruskal-Wallis tests to test for significance of variations in SOC, TN, and TP contents as well as C:N:P stoichiometric ratios across an inverse elevation-dependent warming gradient. Kruskal-Wallis test is a nonparametric alternative to one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and is appropriate for comparing three or more independent samples of field survey data [24,31]. We also evaluated the correlation coefficients in the relationships between the warming index and SOC, TN, TP, and C:N:P stoichiometric ratios.…”

Section: Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In most cases, warming reduced the coefficients from correlations of SOC and C:N:P stoichiometric ratios with vegetation-related variables. Although warming may improve stand productivity [24] and to some extent increase input of plant litter to the ground layer that finally adds to the topsoil organic matter pool [39,52], the loss of SOC due to increased microbial respiration under warming can exceed the additional input of organic material into the soil [53].…”

Section: Warming Effects On the Relationships Of Soc And C:n:p Stoichmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Warming Effects on Topsoil Organic Carbon and C:N:P Stoichiometry in a Subtropical Forested Landscape

Xie

et al. 2020

Forests

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Warming effects on agricultural and forest ecosystems have been well documented at broad spatiotemporal scales but less so at stand and landscape scales. To detect the changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) and carbon:nitogen:phosphorus (C:N:P) stoichiometry in response to a short-range warming gradient, we defined an inverse elevation-dependent warming gradient and developed a novel index of warming based on a common environmental lapse rate. We associated the warming gradient and warming index with the changes in SOC and C:N:P stoichiometry and tested the independence of warming effects using partial correlation analysis. SOC content and C:N:P stoichiometric ratios significantly decreased with warming, and the effect of warming on C:N:P stoichiometric ratios were stronger than on SOC content. The relationships of SOC content and C:N:P stoichiometric ratios with warming did not change after controlling for two other energy-related variables, i.e., transmitted total radiation and potential direct incident radiation. However, the strength in the relationships of C:N:P stoichiometric ratios with vegetation-related variables significantly decreased after the warming index was controlled for. As indicated by the random forest regression model, the warming index was the most important variable for predicting SOC variability and the second most important for predicting total N variability, while vegetation-related variables were the most important for predicting C:N:P stoichiometric ratios. Our results showed that warming was responsible for the decrease in SOC content and C:N:P stoichiometric ratios and the warming index was the most important variable for predicting SOC variability. Although the most important variables for C:N:P stoichiometric ratios were related to vegetation, the relationships between C:N:P stoichiometric ratios and vegetation-related variables were significantly affected by warming. These findings demonstrate that warming is the major driver of SOC variability and the decrease in SOC content, as well as of C:N:P stoichiometry, even along a short-range warming gradient.

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Topography-associated thermal gradient predicts warming effects on woody plant structural diversity in a subtropical forest

Cited by 24 publications

References 38 publications

Restoring the fire–grazing interaction promotes tree–grass coexistence by controlling woody encroachment

Restoring the fire–grazing interaction promotes tree–grass coexistence by controlling woody encroachment

Community Attributes Predict the Relationship between Habitat Invasibility and Land Use Types in an Agricultural and Forest Landscape

Warming Effects on Topsoil Organic Carbon and C:N:P Stoichiometry in a Subtropical Forested Landscape

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