학술논문

Opposing community assembly patterns for dominant and nondominant plant species in herbaceous ecosystems globally
Document Type
article
Source
Ecology and Evolution, Vol 11, Iss 24, Pp 17744-17761 (2021)
Subject
biodiversity
community assembly
evolutionary strategies
grasslands
Nutrient Network
phylogenetic relatedness
Ecology
QH540-549.5
Language
English
ISSN
2045-7758
Abstract
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 (