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Luo W, Ishii NI, Muraina TO, Song L, Te N, Griffin-Nolan RJ, Slette IJ, Ross SRPJ, Sasaki T, Rudgers JA, Smith MD, Knapp AK, Collins SL. Extreme Drought Increases the Temporal Variability of Grassland Productivity by Suppressing Dominant Grasses. Ecol Lett 2025; 28:e70127. [PMID: 40289883 DOI: 10.1111/ele.70127] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2024] [Revised: 03/28/2025] [Accepted: 04/01/2025] [Indexed: 04/30/2025]
Abstract
Extreme droughts are intensifying, yet their impact on temporal variability of grassland functioning and its drivers remains poorly understood. We imposed a 6-year extreme drought in two semiarid grasslands to explore how drought influences the temporal variability of ANPP and identify potential stabilising mechanisms. Drought decreased ANPP while increasing its temporal variability across grasslands. In the absence of drought, ANPP variability was strongly driven by the dominant plant species (i.e., mass-ratio effects), as captured by community-weighted traits and species stability. However, drought decreased the dominance of perennial grasses, providing opportunities for subordinate species to alter the stability of productivity through compensatory dynamics. Specifically, under drought, species asynchrony emerged as a more important correlate of ANPP variability than community-weighted traits or species stability. Our findings suggest that in grasslands, prolonged, extreme droughts may decrease the relative contribution of mass-ratio effects versus compensatory dynamics to productivity stability by reducing the influence of dominant species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wentao Luo
- Liaoning Northwest Grassland Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Erguna Forest-Steppe Ecotone Research Station, CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Silviculture, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China
| | - Naohiro I Ishii
- Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
- Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University, Tottori, Japan
| | - Taofeek O Muraina
- Department of Biology, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas, USA
- Department of Animal Health and Production, Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology, Igbo-Ora, Oyo State, Nigeria
| | - Lin Song
- Liaoning Northwest Grassland Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Erguna Forest-Steppe Ecotone Research Station, CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Silviculture, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China
| | - Niwu Te
- Liaoning Northwest Grassland Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Erguna Forest-Steppe Ecotone Research Station, CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Silviculture, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China
| | | | - Ingrid J Slette
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St Paul, Minnesota, USA
| | - Samuel R P J Ross
- Integrative Community Ecology Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna-son, Okinawa, Japan
| | - Takehiro Sasaki
- Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
| | - Jennifer A Rudgers
- Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
| | - Melinda D Smith
- Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
| | - Alan K Knapp
- Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
| | - Scott L Collins
- Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
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Wang W, Li W. Short-Term Responses of Alpine Vegetation to the Removal of Dominant versus Sparse Species. PLANTS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2024; 13:1756. [PMID: 38999595 PMCID: PMC11244358 DOI: 10.3390/plants13131756] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2024] [Revised: 06/16/2024] [Accepted: 06/21/2024] [Indexed: 07/14/2024]
Abstract
The mass ratio hypothesis posits that ecosystem functions are predominantly influenced by the dominant species. However, it remains unclear whether a species must be abundant to exert functional dominance. We conducted a removal experiment in an alpine grassland near Pudacuo National Park, Yunnan, China, to assess the community and ecosystem impacts of the removed species. We implemented four treatments as follows: exclusive removal of the most abundant species (Blysmus sinocompressus), exclusive removal of a sparse species with high individual biomass (Primula secundiflora), simultaneous removal of both species, and a control with no removals. Results showed that removing B. sinocompressus significantly reduced biomass production, supporting the mass ratio hypothesis, while removal of P. secundiflora had negligible effects. B. sinocompressus removal positively impacted community metrics like coverage, species evenness, and the Shannon diversity index, but not species richness, likely due to its spatial dominance. Conversely, P. secundiflora removal had minimal community impact, probably due to its limited influence on nearby species. This study underscores the proportionate roles of the dominant species in alpine grasslands, emphasizing that their community and ecosystem impacts are proportional to their abundance.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Wei Li
- Soil and Water Conservation Institute, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming 650224, China;
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Ward D, Kirkman K, Morris C. Long-term subtropical grassland plots take a long time to change: Replacement is more important than richness differences for beta diversity. Ecol Evol 2023; 13:ECE310195. [PMID: 37325718 PMCID: PMC10266706 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.10195] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2022] [Revised: 04/07/2023] [Accepted: 05/24/2023] [Indexed: 06/17/2023] Open
Abstract
We studied β diversity of grasses in a subtropical grassland over 60 years in South Africa. We examined the effects of burning and mowing on 132 large plots. We sought to determine the effects of burning and mowing, and mowing frequency, on the replacement of species and the species richness. We conducted the study at Ukulinga, research farm of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa (29°24'E, 30°24'S) from 1950-2010. Plots were burned annually, biennially, triennially, and a control (unburned). Plots were mowed in spring, late summer, spring plus late summer, and a control (unmowed). We calculated β diversity, with a focus on replacement and richness differences. We also used distance-based redundancy analyses to examine the relative effects of replacement and richness differences on mowing and burning. We used beta regressions to test for the effect of soil depth and its interactions with mowing and burning. There was no significant change in grass beta diversity until 1995. Thereafter, there were changes in β diversity that demonstrated the primary effects of summer mowing frequency. There was no significant effect of richness differences but a strong effect of replacement post-1995. There was a significant interaction between mowing frequency and soil depth in one of the analyses. Changes in grassland composition took a long time to manifest themselves and were unapparent prior to 1988. However, there was a change in sampling strategy prior to 1988, from point hits to nearest plants, that may also have influenced the rates of changes in replacement and richness differences. Using β-diversity indices, we found that mowing was more important than burning that burning frequency was unimportant, and there was a significant interaction effect between mowing and soil depth in one of the analyses.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Ward
- Department of Biological SciencesKent State UniversityKentOhioUSA
| | - Kevin Kirkman
- School of Life SciencesUniversity of KwaZulu‐NatalScottsvilleSouth Africa
| | - Craig Morris
- School of Life SciencesUniversity of KwaZulu‐NatalScottsvilleSouth Africa
- Agricultural Research Council – Animal Productionc/o University of KwaZulu‐NatalPietermaritzburgSouth Africa
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Potgieter LJ, Shrestha N, Cadotte MW. Prioritizing terrestrial invasive alien plant species for management in urban ecosystems. J Appl Ecol 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.14103] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Luke J. Potgieter
- Department of Biological Sciences University of Toronto‐Scarborough Toronto ON Canada
| | | | - Marc W. Cadotte
- Department of Biological Sciences University of Toronto‐Scarborough Toronto ON Canada
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Arnillas CA, Borer ET, Seabloom EW, Alberti J, Baez S, Bakker JD, Boughton EH, Buckley YM, Bugalho MN, Donohue I, Dwyer J, Firn J, Gridzak R, Hagenah N, Hautier Y, Helm A, Jentsch A, Knops JMH, Komatsu KJ, Laanisto L, Laungani R, McCulley R, Moore JL, Morgan JW, Peri PL, Power SA, Price J, Sankaran M, Schamp B, Speziale K, Standish R, Virtanen R, Cadotte MW. Opposing community assembly patterns for dominant and nondominant plant species in herbaceous ecosystems globally. Ecol Evol 2021; 11:17744-17761. [PMID: 35003636 PMCID: PMC8717298 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.8266] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2021] [Revised: 08/14/2021] [Accepted: 09/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Biotic and abiotic factors interact with dominant plants-the locally most frequent or with the largest coverage-and nondominant plants differently, partially because dominant plants modify the environment where nondominant plants grow. For instance, if dominant plants compete strongly, they will deplete most resources, forcing nondominant plants into a narrower niche space. Conversely, if dominant plants are constrained by the environment, they might not exhaust available resources but instead may ameliorate environmental stressors that usually limit nondominants. Hence, the nature of interactions among nondominant species could be modified by dominant species. Furthermore, these differences could translate into a disparity in the phylogenetic relatedness among dominants compared to the relatedness among nondominants. By estimating phylogenetic dispersion in 78 grasslands across five continents, we found that dominant species were clustered (e.g., co-dominant grasses), suggesting dominant species are likely organized by environmental filtering, and that nondominant species were either randomly assembled or overdispersed. Traits showed similar trends for those sites (<50%) with sufficient trait data. Furthermore, several lineages scattered in the phylogeny had more nondominant species than expected at random, suggesting that traits common in nondominants are phylogenetically conserved and have evolved multiple times. We also explored environmental drivers of the dominant/nondominant disparity. We found different assembly patterns for dominants and nondominants, consistent with asymmetries in assembly mechanisms. Among the different postulated mechanisms, our results suggest two complementary hypotheses seldom explored: (1) Nondominant species include lineages adapted to thrive in the environment generated by dominant species. (2) Even when dominant species reduce resources to nondominant ones, dominant species could have a stronger positive effect on some nondominants by ameliorating environmental stressors affecting them, than by depleting resources and increasing the environmental stress to those nondominants. These results show that the dominant/nondominant asymmetry has ecological and evolutionary consequences fundamental to understand plant communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carlos Alberto Arnillas
- Department of Physical and Environmental SciencesUniversity of Toronto ScarboroughTorontoONCanada
| | | | | | - Juan Alberti
- Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC, UNMdP, CONICET)Mar del PlataArgentina
| | - Selene Baez
- Department of BiologyEscuela Politécnica NacionalQuitoEcuador
| | - Jonathan D. Bakker
- School of Environmental and Forest SciencesUniversity of WashingtonSeattleWashingtonUSA
| | | | - Yvonne M. Buckley
- School of Natural Sciences, ZoologyTrinity College DublinDublinIreland
| | - Miguel Nuno Bugalho
- Centre for Applied Ecology Prof. Baeta Neves (CEABN‐InBIO)School of AgricultureUniversity of LisbonLisbonPortugal
| | - Ian Donohue
- School of Natural Sciences, ZoologyTrinity College DublinDublinIreland
| | - John Dwyer
- University of Queensland, School of Biological SciencesST‐LuciaQldAustralia
| | - Jennifer Firn
- Queensland University of Technology (QUT) BrisbaneQldAustralia
| | | | - Nicole Hagenah
- Department of Zoology and EntomologyMammal Research InstituteUniversity of PretoriaPretoriaSouth Africa
| | - Yann Hautier
- Ecology and Biodiversity GroupDepartment of BiologyUtrecht UniversityUtrechtThe Netherlands
| | - Aveliina Helm
- Institute of Ecology and Earth SciencesUniversity of TartuTartuEstonia
| | - Anke Jentsch
- Department of Disturbance EcologyBayCEERUniversity of BayreuthBayreuthGermany
| | - Johannes M. H. Knops
- Department of Health and Environmental SciencesXi'an Jiaotong Liverpool UniversitySuzhouChina
- School of Biological SciencesUniversity of NebraskaLincolnNebraskaUSA
| | | | - Lauri Laanisto
- Department of Agricutural and Environmental SciencesEstonian University of Life SciencesTartuEstonia
| | | | - Rebecca McCulley
- Department of Plant and Soil SciencesUniversity of KentuckyLexingtonKentuckyUSA
| | - Joslin L. Moore
- School of Biological SciencesMonash UniversityClaytonVicAustralia
| | | | | | - Sally A. Power
- Hawkesbury Institute for the EnvironmentWestern Sydney UniversityPenrithAustralia
| | - Jodi Price
- Institute for Land, Water and SocietyCharles Sturt UniversityAlburyNSWAustralia
| | - Mahesh Sankaran
- National Centre for Biological SciencesTIFRBengaluruIndia
- School of BiologyUniversity of LeedsLeedsUK
| | | | - Karina Speziale
- Grupo de Investigaciones en Biología de la Conservación, Laboratorio EcotonoINIBIOMA (CONICET‐UNCOMA)San Carlos de BarilocheRío NegroArgentina
| | - Rachel Standish
- Environmental and Conservation Sciences, College of Science, Health, Engineering and EducationMurdoch UniversityMurdochWestern AustraliaAustralia
| | | | - Marc W. Cadotte
- Department of Biological SciencesUniversity of Toronto ScarboroughTorontoONCanada
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of TorontoTorontoONCanada
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