Dynamical changes of diversity and community assembly during recovery from a plant functional group removal experiment in the alpine meadow

doi:10.17520/biods.2018060

Abstract

Abstract:

Recently, numerous studies have used functional trait or phylogeny to infer the mechanisms of community assembly. However, different processes may lead to similar patterns of diversity. In an alpine meadow plant community in Gannan, we compared the dynamical changes in species diversity, functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity with experimental removal of plant functional groups. We assessed how colonization and extinction affected diversity dynamics after removing functional groups. We found that for communities receiving removals of different number of functional groups, species richness (SR), Shannon-Wiener index (H°), Simpson index (D), and evenness index (J) rapidly converged to the levels for natural communities. Moreover, functional diversity (FD) and phylogenetic diversity (PD) showed the similar trends as species diversity, while the mean pairwise distances (MPD/MPDa and MFD/MFDa) converged to medium levels. Next, species and functional group compositions recovered to the levels of natural communities within a short period. Finally, we found that functional patterns of species colonization and extinction was the main driver of the community recovery. This study indicates that the diversity of species, functions, and phylogeny of plant communities in alpine meadows can recover quickly from functional group removal at small scales when close to natural alpine meadows.

http://jtp.cnki.net/bilingual/detail/html/SWDY201807018

Key words: functional diversity, phylogenetic diversity, species diversity, recovery, alpine meadow

Dexin Sun, Xiang Liu, Shurong Zhou. Dynamical changes of diversity and community assembly during recovery from a plant functional group removal experiment in the alpine meadow[J]. Biodiv Sci, 2018, 26(7): 655-666.

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URL: https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/10.17520/biods.2018060

https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/Y2018/V26/I7/655

Figures/Tables 7

Fig. 1 Changes in species diversity (mean ± SE) during restoration. Legends show the combination of functional groups: Poaceae and Cyperaceae (A), Asteraceae (B), Fabaceae (C), others (D) and rare species (X).

Fig. 2 Changes in functional diversity (mean ± SE) during restoration. Legends show the combination of functional groups: Poaceae and Cyperaceae (A), Asteraceae (B), Fabaceae (C), others (D) and rare species (X).

Fig. 3 Changes in phylogenetic diversity (mean ± SE) during restoration. Legends show the combination of functional groups: Poaceae and Cyperaceae (A), Asteraceae (B), Fabaceae (C), others (D) and rare species (X).

Fig. 4 Changes in relative abundance of different functional groups during restoration. Legends show functional groups: Poaceae and Cyperaceae (A), Asteraceae (B), Fabaceae (C), and others (D).

Fig. 5 Correspondence analysis (CA) of community composition during restoration

Fig. 6 The patterns of phylogeny and functional trait during restoration (mean ± SE). Legends show the combination of functional groups: Poaceae and Cyperaceae (A), Asteraceae (B), Fabaceae (C), others (D) and rare species (X).

Fig. 7 The relationship between SES.βMPD / SES.βMFD of extinct species / colonists to residents and initial phylogenetic diversity / functional diversity

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