1. Competition, facilitation and environmental severity shape the relationship between local and regional species richness in plant communities
- Author
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Philippe Choler, Bernard Clément, David Rosebery, Christian Schöb, Jean-Paul Maalouf, Richard Michalet, Jean-Marie Royer, Christopher J. Lortie, Environnements et Paléoenvironnements OCéaniques (EPOC), Observatoire aquitain des sciences de l'univers (OASU), Université Sciences et Technologies - Bordeaux 1 (UB)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Sciences et Technologies - Bordeaux 1 (UB)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine (LECA), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB [Université de Savoie] [Université de Chambéry])-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Station alpine Joseph Fourier - UMS 3370 (SAJF), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Ecosystèmes, biodiversité, évolution [Rennes] (ECOBIO), Université de Rennes (UR)-Institut Ecologie et Environnement (INEE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Rennes (OSUR), Université de Rennes (UR)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Rennes 2 (UR2)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Rennes 2 (UR2)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Office national des forêts (ONF), Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, Zurich University, Department of Biology [York], University of York [York, UK], Swiss National Science Foundation (PA00P3_136474 and PZ00P3_148261). NSERC DG., Université Sciences et Technologies - Bordeaux 1-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Sciences et Technologies - Bordeaux 1-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB [Université de Savoie] [Université de Chambéry]), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Rennes (OSUR)-Institut Ecologie et Environnement (INEE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Rennes 1 (UR1), Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES)-Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES), Office National des Forêts (ONF), and University of Zurich
- Subjects
Ecology ,Plant community ,15. Life on land ,Sand dune stabilization ,Extreme stress ,10127 Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies ,Species pool ,1105 Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,Geography ,Habitat ,Facilitation ,570 Life sciences ,biology ,590 Animals (Zoology) ,Species richness ,[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics - Abstract
We thank the Nordic Ecological Society for organizing the Symposium in London and in particular Jens-Christian Svenning for this Special Feature in Ecography.; International audience; Understanding the relative contribution of local and regional processes to local species richness is an important ecological question and a subject of controversy between macroecologists and community ecologists. We test the hypothesis that the contribution of local and regional processes is dependent on environmental conditions and that the eff ect of regional processes should be the highest in communities from intermediate positions along environmental severity gradients due to the importance of facilitation. We used the recently developed log-ratio method to analyze the relationship between local species richness (LSR) and regional species richness (RSR) for 13 plant communities from 4 habitat types of France (coastal sand dunes, oceanic heathlands, alpine grasslands, lowland calcareous grasslands). Each habitat type wassplit in 3 – 4 communities using multivariate analyses to identify the relative importance of stress, disturbance, competition, and facilitation functioning within the 13 communities. We found that the LSR/RSR relationship was highly dependent on environmental conditions with saturated communities occurring more frequently than unsaturated communities highlighting the relative importance of local drivers on species richness. We argued that competition was most likely the main source of community saturation whilst facilitation likely contributed to enhancing the importance of the regional species pool for all habitat types. However, the eff ect of facilitation might be stronger in the disturbed than in the stressed systems because unsaturated curves were only observed in the former conditions. In extreme conditions of disturbance LSR was only controlled by the intensity of disturbance. Th is eff ect was not observed in extreme stress conditions. Our study provides support for the emerging balance theory that both local and regional processes are important in nature with their relative contribution depending on environmental conditions. Additionally, this synthesis strongly suggests that facilitation contributes to an important process – the influence of regional species pool on local species richness.
- Published
- 2014