Functional trade-offs increase species diversity in experimental plant communities

Ecology Letters

Volumn 15, Issue 11, 2012, Pages 1276-1282

  Ben Hur, Eyal ^a   Fragman Sapir, Ori ^a   Hadas, Rivka ^b   Singer, Alon ^b   Kadmon, Ronen ^a  

^a HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM   (Israel)

^b VOLCANI CENTER   (Israel)

Author keywords

Annual plants; Coexistence; Competition colonisation trade off; Functional diversity; Manipulation experiment; Neutral theory; Null models; Seed size; Species diversity

Indexed keywords

ANNUAL PLANT; COEXISTENCE; CORRELATION; PLANT COMMUNITY; SEED SIZE; SPECIES DIVERSITY; SPECIES RICHNESS; TRADE-OFF;

ARTICLE; BIODIVERSITY; ECOSYSTEM; GENETICS; PLANT; PLANT DEVELOPMENT; PLANT SEED; POPULATION DYNAMICS; REPRODUCTION; REPRODUCTIVE FITNESS;

BIODIVERSITY; ECOSYSTEM; GENETIC FITNESS; PLANT DEVELOPMENT; PLANTS; POPULATION DYNAMICS; REPRODUCTION; SEEDS;

EID: 84867101223     PISSN: 1461023X     EISSN: 14610248     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01850.x     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Adler, F.R. & Mosquera, J. (2000). Is space necessary? Interference competition and limits to biodiversity. Ecology, 81, 3226-3232.
2. Adler, P.B., HilleRisLambers, J. & Levine, J.M. (2007). A niche for neutrality. Ecol. Lett., 10, 95-104.
3. Amarasekare, P. (2003). Competitive coexistence in spatially structured environments: a synthesis. Ecol. Lett., 6, 1109-1122.
4. Calcagno, V., Mouquet, N., Jarne, P. & David, P. (2006). Coexistence in a metacommunity: the competition-colonization trade-off is not dead. Ecol. Lett., 9, 897-907.
5. Chesson, P. (2000). Mechanisms of maintenance of species diversity. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst., 31, 343-366.
6. Colwell, R.K. & Fuentes, E.R. (1975). Experimental studies of niche. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst., 6, 281-310.
7. Coomes, D.A. & Grubb, P.J. (2003). Colonization, tolerance, competition and seed-size variation within functional groups. Trends Ecol. Evol., 18, 283-291.
8. Dalling, J.W. & Hubbell, S.P. (2002). Seed size, growth rate and gap microsite conditions as determinants of recruitment success for pioneer species. J. Ecol., 90, 557-568.
9. Díaz, S., Hodgson, J.G., Thompson, K., Cabido, M., Cornelissen, J.H.C., Jalili, A. et al. (2004). The plant traits that drive ecosystems: evidence from three continents. J. Veg. Sci., 15, 295-304.
10. Ellwood, M.D.F., Manica, A. & Foster, W.A. (2009). Stochastic and deterministic processes jointly structure tropical arthropod communities. Ecol. Lett., 12, 277-284.
11. Eriksson, O. (2005). Game theory provides no explanation for seed size variation in grasslands. Oecologia, 144, 98-105.
12. Eriksson, O. & Jakobsson, A. (1998). Abundance, distribution and life histories of grassland plants: a comparative study of 81 species. J. Ecol., 86, 922-933.
13. Esther, A., Groeneveld, J., Enright, N.J., Miller, B.P., Lamont, B.B., Perry, G.L.W. et al. (2008). Assessing the importance of seed immigration on coexistence of plant functional types in a species-rich ecosystem. Ecol. Model., 213, 402-416.
14. Foster, B.L., Questad, E.J., Collins, C.D., Murphy, C.A., Dickson, T.L. & Smith, V.H. (2011). Seed availability constrains plant species sorting along a soil fertility gradient. J. Ecol., 99, 473-481.
15. Geritz, S.A.H. (1995). Evolutionarily stable seed polymorphism and small-scale spatial variation in seedling density. Am. Nat., 146, 685-707.
16. Geritz, S.A.H., van der Meijden, E. & Metz, J.A.J. (1999). Evolutionary dynamics of seed size and seedling competitive ability. Theor. Popul. Biol., 55, 324-343.
17. Gravel, D., Canham, C.D., Beaudet, M. & Messier, C. (2006). Reconciling niche and neutrality: the continuum hypothesis. Ecol. Lett., 9, 399-409.
18. Gravel, D., Canard, E., Guichard, F. & Mouquet, N. (2011). Persistence increases with diversity and connectance in trophic metacommunities. PLoS ONE, 6, 9.
19. Guo, Q.F., Brown, J.H., Valone, T.J. & Kachman, S.D. (2000). Constraints of seed size on plant distribution and abundance. Ecology, 81, 2149-2155.
20. Hubbell, S.P. (2001). The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
21. Jakobsson, A. & Eriksson, O. (2000). A comparative study of seed number, seed size, seedling size and recruitment in grassland plants. Oikos, 88, 494-502.
22. Jakobsson, A. & Eriksson, O. (2003). Trade-offs between dispersal and competitive ability: a comparative study of wind-dispersed Asteraceae forbs. Evol. Ecol., 17, 233-246.
23. Kadmon, R. & Allouche, O. (2007). Integrating the effects of area, isolation, and habitat heterogeneity on species diversity: a unification of island biogeography and niche theory. Am. Nat., 170, 443-454.
24. Kneitel, J.M. & Chase, J.M. (2004). Trade-offs in community ecology: linking spatial scales and species coexistence. Ecol. Lett., 7, 69-80.
25. Leishman, M.R. (2001). Does the seed size/number trade-off model determine plant community structure? An assessment of the model mechanisms and their generality. Oikos, 93, 294-302.
26. Leishman, M.R. & Murray, B.R. (2001). The relationship between seed size and abundance in plant communities: model predictions and observed patterns. Oikos, 94, 151-161.
27. Leishman, M.R., Westoby, M. & Jurado, E. (1995). Correlates of seed size variation: a comparison among five temperate floras. J. Ecol., 83, 517-529.
28. Levine, J.M. & Rees, M. (2002). Coexistence and relative abundance in annual plant assemblages: the roles of competition and colonization. Am. Nat., 160, 452-467.
29. Moles, A.T. & Westoby, M. (2002). Seed addition experiments are more likely to increase recruitment in larger-seeded species. Oikos, 99, 241-248.
30. Moles, A.T. & Westoby, M. (2004a). Seedling survival and seed size: a synthesis of the literature. J. Ecol., 92, 372-383.
31. Moles, A.T. & Westoby, M. (2004b). What do seedlings die from and what are the implications for evolution of seed size? Oikos, 106, 193-199.
32. Muller-Landau, H.C. (2010). The tolerance-fecundity trade-off and the maintenance of diversity in seed size. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 107, 4242-4247.
33. Myers, J.A. & Harms, K.E. (2011). Seed arrival and ecological filters interact to assemble high-diversity plant communities. Ecology, 92, 676-686.
34. Rees, M. (1995). Community structure in sand dune annuals: is seed weight a key quantity? J. Ecol., 83, 857-863.
35. Rees, M. & Westoby, M. (1997). Game-theoretical evolution of seed mass in multi-species ecological models. Oikos, 78, 116-126.
36. Rees, M., Grubb, P.J. & Kelly, D. (1996). Quantifying the impact of competition and spatial heterogeneity on the structure and dynamics of a four-species guild of winter annuals. Am. Nat., 147, 1-32.
37. Saverimuttu, T. & Westoby, M. (1996). Seedling longevity under deep shade in relation to seed size. J. Ecol., 84, 681-689.
38. Silvertown, J. (2004). Plant coexistence and the niche. Trends Ecol. Evol., 19, 605-611.
39. Smith, C.C. & Fretwell, S.D. (1974). The optimal balance between size and number of offspring. Am. Nat., 108, 499-506.
40. Stearns, S.C. (1989). Trade-offs in life-history evolution. Funct. Ecol., 3, 259-268.
41. Tilman, D. (1994). Competition and biodiversity in spatially structured habitats. Ecology, 75, 2-16.
42. Tilman, D. (2001). Functional diversity. In: Encyclopedia of Biodiversity (ed Levin, S.A.). Academic Press, Durham, NC, USA University of Minnesota, pp. 109-120.
43. Turnbull, L.A., Rees, M. & Crawley, M.J. (1999). Seed mass and the competition/colonization trade-off: a sowing experiment. J. Ecol., 87, 899-912.
44. Turnbull, L.A., Manley, L. & Rees, M. (2005). Niches, rather than neutrality, structure a grassland pioneer guild. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci., 272, 1357-1364.
45. Turnbull, L.A., Rees, M. & Purves, D.W. (2008). Why equalising trade-offs aren't always neutral. Ecol. Lett., 11, 1037-1046.
46. Villeger, S., Mason, N.W.H. & Mouillot, D. (2008). New multidimensional functional diversity indices for a multifaceted framework in functional ecology. Ecology, 89, 2290-2301.
47. Westoby, M. & Wright, I.J. (2006). Land-plant ecology on the basis of functional traits. Trends Ecol. Evol., 21, 261-268.
48. Westoby, M., Jurado, E. & Leishman, M. (1992). Comparative evolutionary ecology of seed size. Trends Ecol. Evol., 7, 368-372.
49. Wilson, J.B., Peet, R.K., Dengler, J. & Pärtel, M. (2012). Plant species richness: the world records. J. Veg. Sci., 23, 796-802.
50. Wright, S.J. (2002). Plant diversity in tropical forests: a review of mechanisms of species coexistence. Oecologia, 130, 1-14.