Trait means or variance—What determines plant species' local and regional occurrence in fragmented dry grasslands?

Bergholz, Kolja; Kober, Klarissa; Jeltsch, Florian; Schmidt, Kristina; Weiß, Lina

doi:10.1002/ece3.7287

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Prior research from tallgrass prairies shows high LDMC may likewise affect species' abundance across much of the central plains of North America; at sites in Minnesota and Kansas, the most abundant species tended to have higher tissue density in their leaves and roots (Craine et al ., 2001; Craine & Towne, 2010; Tucker et al ., 2011). Similarly, a study focusing on ‘dry’ grasslands in Germany found that more abundant species had higher LDMC (Bergholz et al ., 2021). By contrast, for a compilation of grasslands in Germany that are more mesic, nutrient‐rich and typically mowed, abundant species tended to have roots with low density and/or thin diameter (Lachaise et al ., 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coordination of leaf, root, and seed traits shows the importance of whole plant economics in two semiarid grasslands

Mueller,

Kray,

Blumenthal

2024

New Phytologist

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Summary Uncertainty persists within trait‐based ecology, partly because few studies assess multiple axes of functional variation and their effect on plant performance. For 55 species from two semiarid grasslands, we quantified: (1) covariation between economic traits of leaves and absorptive roots, (2) covariation among economic traits, plant height, leaf size, and seed mass, and (3) relationships between these traits and species' abundance. Pairs of analogous leaf and root traits were at least weakly positively correlated (e.g. specific leaf area (SLA) and specific root length (SRL)). Two pairs of such traits, N content and DMC of leaves and roots, were at least moderately correlated (r > 0.5) whether species were grouped by site, taxonomic group and growth form, or life history. Root diameter was positively correlated with seed mass for all groups of species except annuals and monocots. Species with higher leaf dry matter content (LDMC) tended to be more abundant (r = 0.63). Annuals with larger seeds were more abundant (r = 0.69). Compared with global‐scale syntheses with many observations from mesic ecosystems, we observed stronger correlations between analogous leaf and root traits, weaker correlations between SLA and leaf N, and stronger correlations between SRL and root N. In dry grasslands, plant persistence may require coordination of above‐ and belowground traits, and dense tissues may facilitate dominance.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coordination of leaf, root, and seed traits shows the importance of whole plant economics in two semiarid grasslands

Mueller,

Kray,

Blumenthal

2024

New Phytologist

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“…Among the traits, ITV Leaf and TD Height better explained occupancy than ITV SUM or TD SUM , respectively. Evidence for the choice of traits affecting importance of trait metrics in explaining occupancy exists in the study from a grassland ecosystem by Bergholz et al (2021). However, their finding of ITV Height being more important than ITV Leaf is opposite to ours.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationships of plant species occupancy to niches and traits vary with spatial scale

Mod

Rissanen

Niittynen

et al. 2023

Journal of Biogeography

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Aim: Support for different underlying mechanisms of species occupancy is inconsistent, yet this could be related to spatial scale. Since abiotic filtering typically acts at broader scales than biotic interactions, we hypothesise that occupancy could be more driven by species' abiotic niche (i.e. tolerance and preference of abiotic conditions) at broad scales, whereas species' traits affecting competitive ability could be more important at fine scales. Here, we test these hypotheses by assessing relationships of occupancy to niche and trait metrics across spatial scales.Location: Four study areas located north of Arctic Circle.Taxon: Vascular plants. Methods:We derived occupancy for 106 species at four spatial scales (micro-scale with plot size of 0.04 m 2 and extent of 2 km, local-scale with plot size of 4 m 2 and extent of 40 km, regional-scale with plot size of 4 ha and extent of 800 km, and polarscale with plot size of 4 km 2 and extent of 5200 km). We then assessed using generalized additive models whether the relationships between occupancy and species' niche breadth, niche marginality, intraspecific trait variability (ITV) and trait distinctiveness vary across the scales.Results: At the finer scales, ITV (especially of specific leaf area) had the highest contribution with positive relationship in explaining occupancy. At the broader scales, occupancy was better explained by niche metrics. Especially at the broadest scale, the occupancy had a positive relationship with species' climatic tolerance.Main Conclusions: Abiotic filtering, especially related to macro-climate, drives species occupancy at broader spatial scales while biotic interactions are relatively more important at local scales. This scale-dependency of factors behind species occupancy should be accounted for when, for example, planning conservation of rare species, forecasting invasions or anticipating the effects of changing climate on biota at local versus global scales.

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“…Furthermore, common plant species typically have deeper root systems, particularly in grasslands dominated by herbaceous species compared to most rare species (Li, Zhang, et al, 2011). In ecosystems such as dense grasslands where light competition is intensive, common plant species are usually taller and larger than locally rare species (e.g., Bergholz et al, 2021; Li, Zhang, et al, 2011; Sun et al, 2010; Wei & Wu, 2021), which allows them to achieve larger aboveground and belowground biomass in these communities. Consequently, the deeper roots of the most common species may escape damage by root feeders.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insect root feeders incur negative density‐dependent damage across plant species in an alpine meadow

Kou,

Yang,

Yan

et al. 2024

Ecology

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Although herbivores are well known to incur positive density‐dependent damage and mortality, thereby likely shaping plant community assembly, the response of belowground root feeders to changes in plant density has seldom been addressed. Locally rare plant species (with lower plant biomass per area) are often smaller with shallower roots than common species (with higher plant biomass per area) in competition‐intensive grasslands. Likewise, root feeders are often distributed in the upper soil layers. We hypothesized, therefore, that root feeders would incur negative density (biomass)‐dependent damage across plant species. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the diversity and abundance of plant and root feeder species in an alpine meadow and determined the diet of the root feeders using metabarcoding. Across all species, root feeder load decreased with increasing aboveground plant biomass, root biomass, and total plant biomass per area, indicating a negative density dependence of damage across plant species. Aboveground plant biomass per area increased with increasing individual plant biomass and root depth per area across species, suggesting that rare plant species were smaller in size and had shallower root systems compared to common plant species. Both root biomass per area and root feeder biomass per area decreased with soil depth, but the root feeder biomass decreased disproportionately faster compared to root biomass with increasing root depth. Root feeder load decreased with increasing root depth but was not correlated with the feeding preference of root feeder species. Moreover, the prediction derived from a random process incorporating vertical distributions of root biomass and root feeder biomass significantly accounted for interspecific variation in root feeder load. In conclusion, the data indicate that root feeders incur negative density‐dependent damage across plant species. On this basis, we suggest that manipulative experiments should be conducted to determine the effect of the negative density‐dependent damage on plant community structure and that different types of plant–animal interactions should be concurrently examined to fully understand the effect of plant density on overall herbivore damage across plant species.

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Trait means or variance—What determines plant species' local and regional occurrence in fragmented dry grasslands?

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 9 publications

References 58 publications

Coordination of leaf, root, and seed traits shows the importance of whole plant economics in two semiarid grasslands

Coordination of leaf, root, and seed traits shows the importance of whole plant economics in two semiarid grasslands

The relationships of plant species occupancy to niches and traits vary with spatial scale

Insect root feeders incur negative density‐dependent damage across plant species in an alpine meadow

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