Why does the unimodal species richness-productivity relationship not apply to woody species: A lack of clonality or a legacy of tropical evolutionary history?

Global Ecology and Biogeography

Volumn 17, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 320-326

  Laanisto, Lauri ^a   Urbas, Pille ^a   Pärtel, Meelis ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TARTU   (Estonia)

Author keywords

Clonality; Dominant species; Ecological rules; Evolutionary history; Macroecology; Meta study; Niche conservatism; Species richness productivity; Tropical ecology; Woody vs. herbaceous

Indexed keywords

ABUNDANCE; DOMINANCE; MACROECOLOGY; NICHE; NORTHERN HEMISPHERE; PRIMARY PRODUCTION; SPECIES RICHNESS; WOODY PLANT;

EID: 42149195248     PISSN: 1466822X     EISSN: 14668238     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2007.00375.x     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. Aarssen, L.W. (2004) Interpreting co-variation in species richness and productivity in terrestrial vegetation: Making sense of causations and correlations at multiple scales. Folia Geobotanica, 39, 385-403.
2. Aarssen, L.W. (2007) Death without sex - the 'problem of the small' and selection for reproductive economy in flowering plants. Evolutionary Ecology, doi: 10.1007/s10682-007-9170-z.
3. Axelrod, D.I. (1966) Origin of deciduous and evergreen habits in temperate forests. Evolution, 20, 1-15.
4. Beerling, D.J. (1999) The role of the terrestrial biosphere in Holocene carbon cycle dynamics. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 9, 421-429.
5. Begon, M., Harper, J.L. & Townsend C.R. (1996) Ecology: Individuals, populations and communities, 3rd edn. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Boston.
6. Bruun, H.H. & Ejrnæs, R. (2006) Community-level birth rate: A missing link between ecology, evolution and diversity. Oikos, 113, 185-191.
7. Cornwell, W.K. & Grubb, P.J. (2003) Regional and local patterns in plant species richness with respect to resource availability. Oikos, 100, 417-428.
8. Eriksson, O. & Jerling, J. (1990) Hierarchical selection and risk spreading in clonal plants. Clonal growth in plants: Regulation and function (ed. by J. van Groenendael and H. de Kroon), pp. 79-94. SPB Academic Publishing, The Hague.
9. Foster, B.L. (2001) Constraints on colonization and species richness along a grassland productivity gradient: The role of propagule availability. Ecology Letters, 4, 530-535.
10. Foster, B.L., Dickson, T.L., Murphy, C.A., Karel, I.S. & Smith, V.H. (2004) Propagule pools mediate community assembly and diversity-ecosystem regulation along a grassland productivity gradient. Journal of Ecology, 92, 435-449.
11. Gillman, L.N. & Wright, S.D. (2006) The influence of productivity on the species richness of plants: A critical assessment. Ecology, 87, 1234-1243.
12. Goldberg, D.E., Rajaniemi, T., Gurevitch, J. & Stewart-Oaten, A. (1999) Empirical approaches to quantifying interaction intensity: competition and facilitation along productivity gradients. Ecology, 80, 1118-1131.
13. Grime, J.P. (1973) Competitive exclusion in herbaceous vegetation. Nature, 242, 344-347.
14. Grime, J.P. (1979) Plant strategies and vegetation processes. John Wiley, Chichester.
15. van Groenendael, J.M., Klimeš, L., Klimešová, J. & Hendriks, R.J.J. (1996) Comparative ecology of clonal plants. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 351, 1331-1339.
16. Groner, E. & Novoplansky, A. (2003) Reconsidering diversity-productivity relationships: Directness of productivity estimates matters. Ecology Letters, 6, 695-699.
17. Grubb, P.J. (1987) Global trends in species-richness in terrestrial vegetation: A view from the Northern hemisphere. Organization of communities. Past and present. The 27th symposium of the British Ecological Society, Aberystwyth, 1986 (ed. by J.H.R. Gee and P.S. Giller), pp. 99-118. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford.
18. Harrison, S. & Grace, J.B. (2007) Biogeographic affinity helps explain productivity-richness relationships at regional and local scales. The American Naturalist, 170, S5-S15.
19. Hodgson, J.G. (1987) Why do so few plant species exploit productive habitats? An investigation into cytology, plant strategies and abundance within a local flora. Functional Ecology, 1, 243-250.
20. Huston, M.A. (1994) Biological diversity. The coexistence of species on changing landscape. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
21. Huston, M.A. (1999) Local processes and regional patterns: Appropriate scales for understanding variation in the diversity of plants and animals. Oikos, 86, 393-401.
22. Hutchings, M.J., John, E.A. & Wijesinghe, D.K. (2003) Toward understanding the consequences of soil heterogeneity for plant populations and communities. Ecology, 84, 2322-2334.
23. Jenik, J. (1994) Clonal growth in woody plants: A review. Folia Geobotanica et Phytotaxonomica, 29, 291-306.
24. Jetz, W. & Rahbek, C. (2002) Geographic range size and determinants of avian species richness. Science, 297, 1548-1551.
25. Klimeš, L., Klimešová, J., Hendriks, R. & van Groenendael, J. (1997) Clonal plant architecture: A comparative analysis of form and function. The ecology and evolution of clonal plants (ed. by H. de Kroon and J. van Groenendael) pp. 1-29. Backhuys Publishers, Leiden.
26. Loehle, C. (1987) Partitioning of reproductive effort in clonal plants: a benefit-cost model. Oikos, 49, 199-208.
27. Michalet, R., Brooker, R.W., Cavieres, L.A., Kikvidze, Z., Lortie, C.J., Pugnaire, F.I., Valiente-Banuet, A. & Callaway, R.M. (2006) Do biotic interactions shape both sides of the humped-back model of species richness in plant communities? Ecology Letters, 9, 767-773.
28. Mittelbach, G.G., Steiner, C.F., Scheiner, S.M., Gross, K.L., Reynolds, H.L., Waide, R.B., Willig, M.R., Dodson, S.I. & Gough, L. (2001) What is the observed relationship between species richness and productivity? Ecology, 82, 2381-2396.
29. Pärtel, M. (2002) Local plant diversity patterns and evolutionary history at the regional scale. Ecology, 83, 2361-2366.
30. Pärtel, M. & Wilson, S.D. (2002) Root dynamics and spatial pattern in prairie and forest. Ecology, 83, 1199-1203.
31. Pärtel, M. & Zobel, M. (2007) Dispersal limitation may result in the unimodal productivity-diversity relationship: A new explanation for a general pattern. Journal of Ecology, 95, 90-94.
32. Pärtel, M., Zobel, M., Liira, J. & Zobel, K. (2000) Species richness limitations in productive and oligotrophic plant communities. Oikos, 90, 191-193.
33. Pärtel, M., Laanisto, L. & Wilson, S.D. (2008) Soil nitrogen and carbon heterogeneity in woodlands and grasslands: Contrasts between temperate and tropical regions. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 17, 18-24.
34. Pärtel, M., Laanisto, L. & Zobel, M. (2007) Contrasting plant productivity-diversity relationships across latitude: The role of evolutionary history. Ecology, 88, 1091-1097.
35. Peterson, C.J. & Jones, R.H. (1997) Clonality in woody plants: A review and comparison with clonal herbs. The ecology and evolution of clonal plants (ed. by H. de Kroon and J. van Groenendael), pp. 263-289. Backhuys Publishers, Leiden.
36. Prinzing, A., Durka, W., Klotz, S. & Brandl, R. (2001) The niche of higher plants: Evidence for phylogenetic conservatism. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 268, 2383-2389.
37. Rajaniemi, T.K. (2003) Explaining productivity-diversity relationships in plants. Oikos, 101, 449-457.
38. Reynolds, H.L., Mittelbach, G.G., Darcy-Hall, T.L., Houseman, G.R. & Gross, K.L. (2007) No effect of varying soil resource heterogeneity on plant species richness in a low fertility grassland. Journal of Ecology, 95, 723-733.
39. Richards, P.W. (1996) The tropical rain forest: An ecological study, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
40. Ricklefs, R.E. (2005) Historical and ecological dimensions of global patterns in plant diversity. Biologiske Skrifter Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 55, 583-603.
41. Ricklefs, R.E. (2006) Evolutionary diversification and the origin of the diversity-environment relationship. Ecology, 87, S3-S13.
42. Ricklefs, R.E. (2007) History and diversity: Explorations at the intersection of ecology and evolution. The American Naturalist, 170, S56-S70.
43. Rosenzweig, M.L. (1995) Species diversity in space and time. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
44. Sackville-Hamilton, N.R., Schmid, B. & Harper, J.L. (1987) Lifehistory concepts and the population biology of clonal organisms. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 232, 35-57.
45. Stuefer, J.F., Erschbamer, B., Huber, H. & Suzuki, J.I. (2002) The ecology and evolutionary biology of clonal plants: An introduction to the proceedings of Clone-2000. Evolutionary Ecology, 15, 223-230.
46. Svennson, B.M., Rydin, H. & Carlsson, B.A. (2005) Clonal plants in the community. Vegetation ecology (ed. by E. van der Maarel), pp. 129-146. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.
47. Taylor, D.R., Aarssen, L.W. & Loehle, C. (1990) On the relationship between r/K selection and environmental carrying capacity: A new habitat templet for plant life history strategies. Oikos, 58, 239-250.
48. Tilman, D. (1989) Ecological experimentation: Strengths and conceptual problems. Long-term studies in ecology: Approaches and alternatives (ed. by G.E. Likens), pp. 36-157. Springer-Verlag, New York.
49. VanderMeulen, M.A., Hudson, A.J. & Scheiner, S.M. (2001) Three evolutionary hypotheses for the hump-shaped productivity-diversity curve. Evolutionary Ecology Research, 3, 379-392.
50. Waide, R.B., Willig, M.R., Steiner, C.F., Mittelbach, G.G., Gough, L., Dodson, S.I., Juday, G.P. & Parmenter, R. (1999) The relationship between productivity and species richness. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 30, 257-300.
51. Whittaker, R.H. (1966) Forest dimensions and production in the Great Smoky Mountains. Ecology, 47, 103-121.
52. Willis, K.J. & McElwain, J.C. (2002) The evolution of plants. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
53. Zobel, M. (1997) The relative role of species pools in determining plant species richness: An alternative explanation of species coexistence? Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 12, 266-269.