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Liu H, Liang M, Yang Q, Zhang J, Shen G, Zhang Z, Wang X. Responses of tree seedlings to understory filtering by the recalcitrant fern layer in a subtropical forest. FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE 2022; 13:1033731. [PMID: 36507462 PMCID: PMC9730283 DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2022.1033731] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2022] [Accepted: 11/07/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
The recalcitrant understory fern layer is an important ecological filter for seedling regeneration, yet how the fern layer influences seedling regeneration dynamics remains unclear. Here we transplanted 576 seedlings of four dominant tree species, Castanopsis fargesii, Lithocarpus glaber, Schima superba and Hovenia acerba, to the treatments of Diplopterygium glaucum retention and removal under an evergreen broad-leaved forest in eastern China. We monitored the survival, growth and biomass data of these seedlings for 28 months, and then used generalized linear mixed models to evaluate the treatment effects on seedling survival, growth, biomass and root-shoot ratio. Our results showed that fern retention significantly inhibited the seedling establishment of all four species. During the seedling development stage, the seedling relative growth rate of L. glaber decreased under fern retention, which was not the case for the other three species. Root-shoot ratio of C. fargesii and L. glaber increased significantly under fern retention. Our findings provide new evidence of the filtering effect of a recalcitrant fern understory. Notably, we observed that the response of tree seedlings to the recalcitrant fern understory was more sensitive in the establishment stage. Finally, our work highlights that the filtering effect of the recalcitrant fern understory changes depending on the regeneration stages, and that shade-tolerant species, C. fargesii and L. glaber were even more affected by fern disturbed habitats, suggesting that effective management should attempt to curb forest fern outbreaks, thus unblocking forest recruitment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heming Liu
- Tiantong National Station for Forest Ecosystem Research, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Mengfang Liang
- Department of ecology and climate, Shanxi Academy of Eco-Environmental Planning and Technology, Shanxi, China
| | - Qingsong Yang
- Tiantong National Station for Forest Ecosystem Research, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Jian Zhang
- Tiantong National Station for Forest Ecosystem Research, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Guochun Shen
- Tiantong National Station for Forest Ecosystem Research, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Zhenzhen Zhang
- Tiantong National Station for Forest Ecosystem Research, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Xihua Wang
- Tiantong National Station for Forest Ecosystem Research, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
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Yang J, Su P, Zhou Z, Shi R, Ding X. Environmental filtering rather than dispersal limitation dominated plant community assembly in the Zoige Plateau. Ecol Evol 2022; 12:e9117. [PMID: 35845377 PMCID: PMC9272205 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.9117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2021] [Revised: 06/27/2022] [Accepted: 06/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Identifying the mechanisms that underlie the assembly of plant communities is critical to the conservation of terrestrial biodiversity. However, it is seldom measured or quantified how much deterministic versus stochastic processes contribute to community assembly in alpine meadows. Here, we measured the decay in community similarity with spatial and environmental distance in the Zoige Plateau. Furthermore, we used redundancy analysis (RDA) to divide the variations in the relative abundance of plant families into four components to assess the effects of environmental and spatial. Species assemblage similarity liner declined with geographical distance (p < .001, R2 = .6388), and it decreased significantly with increasing distance of total phosphorus (TP), alkali‐hydrolyzable nitrogen (AN), available potassium (AK), nitrate nitrogen (NO3+–N), and ammonia nitrogen (NH4+–N). Environmental and spatial variables jointly explained a large proportion (55.2%) of the variation in the relative abundance of plant families. Environmental variables accounted for 13.1% of the total variation, whereas spatial variables accounted for 11.4%, perhaps due to the pronounced abiotic gradients in the alpine areas. Our study highlights the mechanism of plant community assembly in the alpine ecosystem, where environmental filtering plays a more important role than dispersal limitation. In addition, a reasonably controlled abundance of Compositae (the family with the highest niche breadth and large niche overlap value with Gramineae and Cyperaceae) was expected to maintain sustainable development in pastoral production. These results suggest that management measures should be developed with the goal of improving or maintaining suitable local environmental conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jianping Yang
- Key Laboratory of Land Surface Process and Climate Change in Cold and Arid Regions Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, CAS Lanzhou China.,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing China
| | - Peixi Su
- Key Laboratory of Land Surface Process and Climate Change in Cold and Arid Regions Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, CAS Lanzhou China
| | - Zijuan Zhou
- Key Laboratory of Land Surface Process and Climate Change in Cold and Arid Regions Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, CAS Lanzhou China
| | - Rui Shi
- Key Laboratory of Land Surface Process and Climate Change in Cold and Arid Regions Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, CAS Lanzhou China
| | - Xinjing Ding
- Key Laboratory of Land Surface Process and Climate Change in Cold and Arid Regions Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, CAS Lanzhou China.,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing China
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Zang L, Xu H, Li Y, Zang R. Conspecific negative density dependence of trees varies with plant functional traits and environmental conditions across scales in a 60‐ha tropical rainforest dynamics plot. Biotropica 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/btp.12910] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Lipeng Zang
- Center of Forest Ecology College of Forestry Guizhou University Guiyang China
- Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of National Forestry and Grassland Administration Research Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection Chinese Academy of Forestry Beijing China
- Co‐Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China Nanjing Forestry University Nanjing China
| | - Han Xu
- Institute of Tropical Forestry Chinese Academy of Forestry Guangzhou China
| | - Yide Li
- Institute of Tropical Forestry Chinese Academy of Forestry Guangzhou China
| | - Runguo Zang
- Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of National Forestry and Grassland Administration Research Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection Chinese Academy of Forestry Beijing China
- Co‐Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China Nanjing Forestry University Nanjing China
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Key Community Assembly Processes Switch between Scales in Shaping Beta Diversity in Two Primary Forests, Southwest China. FORESTS 2020. [DOI: 10.3390/f11101106] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Environmental and dispersal-based processes have been widely investigated for the understanding of community assembly. However, the relative importance of these ecological processes across spatial scales, life history stages and forest types needs to be largely studied. We test the variability of ecological processes in shaping tree community composition across life stages and spatial scales, and in particular, the hypothesis that dispersal limitation dominates at smaller scales and early life stages, but environmental filtering at larger scales and later life stages. We used spatially explicit point process models to estimate the relative importance of environmental and dispersal processes and their combined effect on beta diversity across spatial scales and life stages in tropical and subtropical forests. These models fit the observed species distribution pattern and generated realizations of the fitted models for each species. We found that the importance of environmental and dispersal processes did not shift with life stages or vegetation types, but did with spatial scales. Dispersal provided the best explanation of large-scale patterns, but dispersal combined with environmental selection was superior for small-scale patterns. In conclusion, we confirm the importance of spatial scale for the effects and identification of community assembly mechanisms. Our results also suggest that the importance of both dispersal and environmental processes for community assembly could be pervasive across life stages and vegetation types. The generality of these findings should be tested further in different vegetation types and life stages to assess whether specific ecological processes have consistent effects on community structure across life stages and vegetation types.
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Understanding Community Assembly Based on Functional Traits, Ontogenetic Stages, Habitat Types and Spatial Scales in a Subtropical Forest. FORESTS 2019. [DOI: 10.3390/f10121055] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Community assembly in natural communities is commonly explained by stochastic and niche-based processes such as environmental filtering and biotic interactions. Many studies have inferred the importance of these processes using a trait-based approach, however, there are still unknowns around what factors affect the importance of different assembly processes in natural communities. In this study, the trait dispersion patterns of 134 species were examined across different functional traits, habitat types, ontogenetic stages and spatial scales from a 20-ha Dinghushan Forest Dynamic Plot in China. The results showed that (1) functional traits related to productivity such as specific leaf area and leaf area mainly showed functional clustering, indicating these two functional traits were more affected by environmental filtering. However, trait dispersion patterns depended on more than the ecological significances of functional traits. For example, trait dispersions of leaf dry matter content, leaf thickness and maximum height did not show consistent patterns across habitat types and ontogenetic stages, suggesting more complex mechanisms may operate on these traits; (2) the trait dispersion varied with the habitat types and ontogenetic stages. Specifically, we found that habitat types only affected the strength of trait dispersions for all the five traits, but ontogenetic stages influenced both the strength and direction of trait dispersions, which depended on the traits selected; (3) the relative importance of soil, topography and space to trait dispersion varied with ontogenetic stages. Topography and space were more important for trait dispersion of saplings but soil was more important for trait dispersion of adults; (4) biotic interactions dominated community assembly at smaller spatial scales but environmental filtering dominated community assembly at larger spatial scales. Overall, the results highlight the importance of functional traits, habitat types, ontogenetic stages and spatial scales to community assembly in natural communities.
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Liu Q, Bi L, Song G, Wang Q, Jin G. Species-habitat associations in an old-growth temperate forest in northeastern China. BMC Ecol 2018; 18:20. [PMID: 29986704 PMCID: PMC6038321 DOI: 10.1186/s12898-018-0177-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/16/2018] [Accepted: 06/28/2018] [Indexed: 03/29/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Species coexistence mechanisms and maintenance of biodiversity have long been considered important components of community ecology research. As one of the important mechanisms, species coexistence theory based on niche differentiation has received attention in past years. Thus, topography, through the formation of habitat heterogeneity, affects species distributions and coexistence. A 30-ha dynamic plot of mixed broadleaved-Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis) forest is located in the Heilongjiang Fenglin National Nature Reserve. We examined species-habitat associations using the torus-translation method. We aim to understand the habitat associations of different species, life forms (shrubs, trees), and shade tolerance (light-demanding, midtolerant, shade-tolerant) across life stages (sapling, juvenile and mature), providing further evidence for the role of niche theory in temperate forests. RESULTS Of the 33 species we tested, 28 species (84.8%) were at least significantly associated with one habitat type. Positive associations were more frequent in the valley and slope (shady and sunny) and less frequent on the ridge. Thirty-four significant positive associations with the five habitats were detected at three life stages (11, 11 and 12 at the sapling stage, juvenile stage, and mature stage, respectively). The trees were positively associated with the valley, and the shrubs were positively associated with sunny and ridge. The majority of species' habitat preferences shifted among different life stages; the exceptions were Corylus mandshurica, Maackia amurensis, Quercus mongolica, Picea jezoensis and Acer ukurunduense, which had consistent associations with the same habitat at all stages. The midtolerant trees and midtolerant shrubs were positively correlated with sunny across the three life stages. CONCLUSIONS Most species show habitat preferences in the plot. These results indicate that niche theory plays an important role in species coexistence. Most species have no consistent association with habitat at different life stages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qi Liu
- Center for Ecological Research, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China
| | - Lianzhu Bi
- Heilongjiang Fenglin National Nature Reserve Authority, Yichun, 153033, China
| | - Guohua Song
- Heilongjiang Fenglin National Nature Reserve Authority, Yichun, 153033, China
| | - Quanbo Wang
- Heilongjiang Fenglin National Nature Reserve Authority, Yichun, 153033, China
| | - Guangze Jin
- Center for Ecological Research, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China.
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Bar‐Massada A, Yang Q, Shen G, Wang X. Tree species co‐occurrence patterns change across grains: insights from a subtropical forest. Ecosphere 2018. [DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.2213] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Avi Bar‐Massada
- Tiantong National Station for Forest Ecosystem Research School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences East China Normal University Shanghai 200241 China
- Department of Biology and Environment University of Haifa at Oranim Kiryat Tivon 36006 Israel
| | - Qingsong Yang
- Tiantong National Station for Forest Ecosystem Research School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences East China Normal University Shanghai 200241 China
| | - Guochun Shen
- Tiantong National Station for Forest Ecosystem Research School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences East China Normal University Shanghai 200241 China
- Shanghai Institute of Pollution Control and Ecological Security 1515 North Zhongshan Road (No. 2) Shanghai 200092 China
| | - Xihua Wang
- Tiantong National Station for Forest Ecosystem Research School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences East China Normal University Shanghai 200241 China
- Shanghai Institute of Pollution Control and Ecological Security 1515 North Zhongshan Road (No. 2) Shanghai 200092 China
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Rajala T, Murrell DJ, Olhede SC. Detecting multivariate interactions in spatial point patterns with Gibbs models and variable selection. J R Stat Soc Ser C Appl Stat 2018. [DOI: 10.1111/rssc.12281] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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Deng C, Guan Y, Waagepetersen RP, Zhang J. Second-order quasi-likelihood for spatial point processes. Biometrics 2017; 73:1311-1320. [PMID: 28369699 DOI: 10.1111/biom.12694] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2016] [Revised: 02/01/2017] [Accepted: 03/01/2017] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Applications of spatial point processes for large and complex data sets with inhomogeneities as encountered, example, in tropical rain forest ecology call for estimation methods that are both statistically and computationally efficient. We propose a novel second-order quasi-likelihood procedure to estimate the parameters for a second-order intensity reweighted stationary spatial point process. Our approach is to derive first- and second-order estimating functions and then combine them linearly using appropriate weight functions. In the stationary case, we argue that the asymptotically optimal weight functions are respectively a constant and a function of lags between distinct locations in the observation window. This leads to a considerable gain in computational efficiency. We further exploit this simplification in the nonstationary case. Simulations show that, when compared with several existing approaches, our method can achieve significant gains in statistical efficiency. An application to a tropical rain forest data set further illustrates the advantages of our procedure.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chong Deng
- Program in Applied Mathematics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, U.S.A
| | - Yongtao Guan
- Department of Management Science, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida 33124, U.S.A
| | - Rasmus P Waagepetersen
- Department of Mathematical Sciences, Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajersvej 7G, Aalborg 9220, Denmark
| | - Jingfei Zhang
- Department of Management Science, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida 33124, U.S.A
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