Trait dynamics of Mediterranean xerophytic shrub communities growing on stabilised inland dunes respond to nutrient and aridity gradients

Changes in rainfall amount and seasonality modulate taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity in a gypsophilous plant community in the Chihuahuan Desert

“…Our findings evidence that shifts from the typical rainfall timing along the growing season, resulted in changes in species richness, diversity, and in combination with the 50% irrigation treatment, the taxonomic indices drastically declined, affecting the community composition. These results are similar to those obtained in other studies conducted in arid and semi-arid regions throughout the world, which have shown that changes in rainfall timing had important effects on community assembly, germination, survival, or community productivity, thereby determining species diversity and coexistence (Lundholm and Larson 2004;Muldavin et al 2008;Chozas et al 2017;Zhong et al 2019). In particular, Peralta et al (2019) found high resistance to moderate (30% water reduction) but not to severe drought intensities (60% water reduction) of annual plant communities in terms of the species richness, abundance, and functional diversity.…”

“…Water availability is a crucial driver of plant community development in these systems, since it 105 determines plant germination, growth, and reproduction, thereby affecting community dynamics (Weltzin and Tissue 2003). Experimental studies in arid systems have demonstrated that lower water availability resulted in decreases in plant spe-110 cies numbers (Lloret et al 2004), diversity, cover (Miranda et al 2009), and functional diversity (Chozas et al 2017). Similar effects of water restrictions have been found in semiarid gypsic ecosystems on the taxonomic variables (Luzuriaga et al 115 2012(Luzuriaga et al 115 , 2015 and on functional and phylogenetic diversities (Peralta et al 2019;Sánchez et al 2022).…”

Community dynamics of stabilized dune xerophytic shrubs

“…These community changes in the studied system also involve a turnover in key functional traits (Chozas et al 2017b) and imply variations in species richness, trait dynamics and functional diversity, highlighting the importance of the selection of traits involved in the analyses of functional indices, since they strongly influence their results and interpretation. S. genistoides communities presented low values of both taxonomical and functional richness, mainly determined by the presence and dominance of a reduced number of pioneer species shaped by early stage environmental conditions, such as high radiation and low nutrient availability.…”

Rescuing Botany: using citizen-science and mobile apps in the classroom and beyond

“…These included species richness, which measures the number of different species that occur in a sample, and the Simpson Diversity Index, which evaluates the probability that two individuals randomly selected from a sample will belong to the same species. Students also calculated functional diversity indices such as Functional Richness and Functional Dissimilarity, since functional diversity explores functional differences between species and how these differences reflect and affect the interactions with the environment and with other species 29 . Then, students assessed the relation between these indices and perturbation level.…”