植物邻体间的正相互作用

植物间的正负相互作用是构建植被群落的重要因素,也是群落生态学研究的中心内容之一。近20a来,植物间正相互作用的研究得到快速发展。综述了正相互作用的定义,不同植物群落中的直接、间接正相互作用及其发生机制,正相互作用研究的实验和模型方法,正负相互作用随胁迫梯度的变化及正相互作用对群落构建的影响。探讨了正相互作用研究前景:(1)进一步理解正负相互作用的平衡及其对群落构建的影响;(2)加深对全球变暖背景下的正相互作用的认识;(3)需把正相互作用研究同进化联系起来;(4)充分发挥正相互作用在生态系统中的推动力作用,把正相互作用应用到生态恢复中,为恢复退化生态系统服务。     

Departures from neutrality induced by niche and relative fitness differences

Breaking the core assumption of ecological equivalence in Hubbell’s “neutral theory of biodiversity” requires a theory of species differences. In one framework for characterizing differences between competing species, non-neutral interactions are said to involve both niche differences, which promote stable coexistence, and relative fitness differences, which promote competitive exclusion. We include both in a stochastic community model in order to determine if relative fitness differences compensate for changes in community structure and dynamics induced by niche differences, possibly explaining neutral theory’s apparent success. We show that species abundance distributions are sensitive to both niche and relative fitness differences, but that certain combinations of differences result in abundance distributions that are indistinguishable from the neutral case. In contrast, the distribution of species’ lifetimes, or the time between speciation and extinction, differs under all combinations of niche and relative fitness differences. The results from our model experiment are inconsistent with the hypothesis of “emergent neutrality” and support instead a hypothesis that relative fitness differences counteract effects of niche differences on distributions of abundance. However, an even more developed theory of interspecific variation appears necessary to explain the diversity and structure of non-neutral communities.     

Investigating the community consequences of competition among clonal plants

Although clonal plants comprise most of the biomass of several widespread ecosystems, including many grasslands, wetlands, and tundra, our understanding of the effects of clonal attributes on community patterns and processes is weak. Here we present the conceptual basis for experiments focused on manipulating clonal attributes in a community context to determine how clonal characteristics affect interactions among plants at both the individual and community levels. All treatments are replicated at low and high density in a community density series to compare plant responses in environments of different competitive intensity. We examine clonal integration, the sharing of resources among ramets, by severing ramets from one another and comparing their response to ramets with intact connections. Ramet aggregation, the spacing of ramets relative to each other, is investigated by comparing species that differ in their natural aggregation (either clumped growth forms, with ramets tightly packed together, or runner growth forms, with ramets loosely spread) and by planting individual ramets of all species evenly spaced throughout a mesocosm. We illustrate how to test predictions to examine the influence of these two clonal traits on competitive interactions at the individual and community levels. To evaluate the effect of clonal integration on competition, we test two predictions: at the individual level, species with greater clonal integration will be better individual-level competitors, and at the community level, competition will cause a greater change in community composition when ramets are integrated (connected) than when they are not. For aggregation we test at the individual level: clumped growth forms are better competitors than runner growth forms because of their ability to resist invasion, and at the community level: competition will have a greater effect on community structure when ramets are evenly planted. An additional prediction connects the individual- and community-level effects of competition: resistance ability better predicts the effects of competition on relative abundance in a community than does invasion ability. We discuss additional experimental design considerations as revealed by our ongoing studies. Examining how clonal attributes affect both the individual- and community-level effects of competition requires new methods and metrics such as those presented here, and is vital to understanding the role of clonality in community structure of many ecosystems.     

Does selective defoliation mediate competitive interactions in a semiarid savanna? A demographic evaluation

Abstract. Three patterns of target-neighbor plant defoliation were imposed on a late-seral, perennial, C₄-grass, Bouteloua curtipendula, in three long-term grazing regimes to determine the influence of selective defoliation on competitive interactions and species replacement in a semiarid savanna on the Edwards Plateau, Texas, USA. Short-term (3-yr) target plant defoliation did not significantly affect either tiller or plant responses in any of the three grazing regimes. Neighbor plant defoliation, either alone or in combination with target plants, produced a significant defoliation interaction with time for tiller number and basal area per plant, but not for tiller recruitment or mortality. The minimal effect of selective defoliation on the intensity of competitive interactions in this semiarid community indicates that selective grazing has a less definitive role in mediating herbivore-induced species replacement than it does in mesic grasslands and savannas. This interpretation is discussed within the context of long-term (45-yr) change in herbaceous vegetation associated with grazing in this community. Cumulative tiller recruitment in the intensively grazed regime was only 44% of that in the ungrazed regime because of greater plant mortality and fewer surviving plants that recruited tillers. Target plant mortality (50%) only occurred in the intensively grazed regime and the proportion of target plants that initiated tillers decreased by 70, 48 and 32% in the ungrazed, moderately and intensively grazed regimes, respectively, during the final two years of the investigation. The decrease in cumulative tiller recruitment in all grazing regimes was probably mediated by a drought-induced increase in median tiller age the second year of the study. However, tiller per tiller recruitment rate among plants that recruited at least one tiller remained relatively constant among grazing regimes and years. Intensive, long-term grazing has modified the population structure of this late-seral perennial grass to the extent that population responses to both herbivory and periodic drought have been altered in comparison with those of ungrazed and moderately grazed populations. Ecological consequences of a herbivore-induced transition in population structure may be to minimize the effect of selective herbivory on competitive interactions and to function as an avoidance mechanism to reduce the probability of localized population extinction in response to intensive long-term herbivory.     

Within‐Year Soil Legacies Contribute to Strong Priority Effects of Exotics on Native California Grassland Communities

Understanding priority effects, in which one species in a habitat decreases the success of later species, may be essential for restoring native communities. Priority effects can operate in two ways: size‐asymmetric competition and creation of “soil legacies,” effects on soil that may last long after the competitive effect. We examined how these two types of priority effects, competition and soil legacies, drive interactions between seedlings of native and exotic California grassland plants. We established native and exotic communities in a mesocosm experiment. After 5 weeks, we removed the plants from half the treatments (soil legacy treatment) and retained the plants in the other half (priority effect treatment, which we interpret to include both competition and soil legacies). We then added native or exotic seed as the colonizing community. After 2 months, we measured the biomass of the colonizing community. When germinating first, both natives and exotics established priority effects, reducing colonist biomass by 86 and 92%, respectively. These priority effects were predominantly due to size‐asymmetric competition. Only exotics created soil legacies, and these legacies only affected native colonizers, reducing biomass by 74%. These results imply that exotic species priority effects can affect native grassland restorations. Although most restorations focus on removing exotic seedlings, amending soil to address soil legacies may also be critical. Additionally, because native species can exclude exotics if given a head start, ensuring that natives germinate first may be a cost‐effective restoration technique.     

Strain and vegetation effects on local limiting resources explain the outcomes of biotic interactions

Positive interactions are hypothesized to increase with stress (stress-gradient hypothesis, “SGH”), which is defined in terms of standing biomass at the community level. However, recent evidence suggests that facilitation may decrease or remain constant as stress increases. Several reasons for this discrepancy are possible: (i) the outcomes of biotic interactions depend on the component of the fitness considered; (ii) they are influenced by how vegetation affects local limiting resources; (iii) within a particular community, only species that are deviated from their physiological optima are likely to be facilitated. In a removal experiment, we quantified the deviations of species in subalpine grassland from their physiological optima, defined here as species-level “strain”, and examined whether strain and vegetation effects on local resources can explain the outcome of biotic interactions. The experiment was performed along a gradient of standing biomass driven by contrasting land use and resource availability, and used five grass species with contrasting traits and ecological optima. Strain for each species was estimated by comparing growth without vegetation (target species only submitted to local abiotic factors) to growth in optimal conditions (under controlled conditions in an experimental garden). The outcomes of biotic interactions, recorded in terms of survival and growth, could be predicted from the data about strain and vegetation effects on local limiting resources (light and water). Only highly strained species were affected by facilitation, which occurred when the surrounding vegetation alleviated the constraining factors. On the other hand, standing biomass was poorly related with the outcomes of biotic interactions. The “SGH” was only partially validated with growth data when strain and vegetation effects co-varied with standing biomass. As a consequence, strain (at species level) represents a mechanistic basis which could improve the prediction of the outcomes of biotic interactions along ecological gradients.     

Conceptualizing ecosystem tipping points within a physiological framework

Connecting the nonlinear and often counterintuitive physiological effects of multiple environmental drivers to the emergent impacts on ecosystems is a fundamental challenge. Unfortunately, the disconnect between the way “stressors” (e.g., warming) is considered in organismal (physiological) and ecological (community) contexts continues to hamper progress. Environmental drivers typically elicit biphasic physiological responses, where performance declines at levels above and below some optimum. It is also well understood that species exhibit highly variable response surfaces to these changes so that the optimum level of any environmental driver can vary among interacting species. Thus, species interactions are unlikely to go unaltered under environmental change. However, while these nonlinear, species‐specific physiological relationships between environment and performance appear to be general, rarely are they incorporated into predictions of ecological tipping points. Instead, most ecosystem‐level studies focus on varying levels of “stress” and frequently assume that any deviation from “normal” environmental conditions has similar effects, albeit with different magnitudes, on all of the species within a community. We consider a framework that realigns the positive and negative physiological effects of changes in climatic and nonclimatic drivers with indirect ecological responses. Using a series of simple models based on direct physiological responses to temperature and ocean pCO₂, we explore how variation in environment‐performance relationships among primary producers and consumers translates into community‐level effects via trophic interactions. These models show that even in the absence of direct mortality, mismatched responses resulting from often subtle changes in the physical environment can lead to substantial ecosystem‐level change.     

Interspecific competition in plants: how well do current methods answer fundamental questions?

Accurately quantifying and interpreting the processes and outcomes of competition among plants is essential for evaluating theories of plant community organization and evolution. We argue that many current experimental approaches to quantifying competitive interactions introduce size bias, which may significantly impact the quantitative and qualitative conclusions drawn from studies. Size bias generally arises when estimates of competitive ability are erroneously influenced by the initial size of competing individuals. We employ a series of quantitative thought experiments to demonstrate the potential for size bias in analysis of four traditional experimental designs (pairwise, replacement series, additive series, and response surfaces) either when only final measurements are available or when both initial and final measurements are collected. We distinguish three questions relevant to describing competitive interactions: Which species dominates? Which species gains? and How do species affect each other? The choice of experimental design and measurements greatly influences the scope of inference permitted. Conditions under which the latter two questions can give biased information are tabulated. We outline a new approach to characterizing competition that avoids size bias and that improves the concordance between research question and experimental design. The implications of the choice of size metrics used to quantify both the initial state and the responses of elements in interspecific mixtures are discussed. The relevance of size bias in competition studies with organisms other than plants is also discussed.     

Interactions between root and shoot competition vary among species

Understanding how the competition varies with productivity is essential for differentiating among alternative models of plant community organization. Prior attempts to explain shifts in root and shoot competition along gradients have generally assumed an additive interaction between the two competitive forms, using an experimental design which does not fully separate both above‐ and belowground processes. At the most basic level, few field studies have separated root and shoot competition, and we have limited knowledge about both the relative importance of these processes, and how they interact to affect plant growth in the field. Presented here are findings from a field study in which root and shoot competition were experimentally separated by using root exclusion tubes and neighbor tiebacks in an early successional community. Individuals of four species (Abutilon theophrasti, Amaranthus retroflexus, Rumex crispus, and Plantago lanceolata) were grown at two levels of fertilization with full competition, aboveground competition only, belowground competition only, or neither above‐ nor belowground competition. Competition was measured as competitive response, which is the natural log of the relative biomass of a target plant grown with competition compared to growth without competition. In contrast to predictions from current models of productivity‐competition relationships, but in agreement with other experimental studies, there was no change in the strengths or root, shoot, or total competition with a modest increase in productivity. Despite no effect of fertilization on the strength of competition, the form of interaction between root and shoot competition varied both as a function of species identity and fertilization. For both of the rosette forming species, the combined effects of root and shoot competition were less than predicted assuming no interaction (a “negative interaction”), with one species switching from a negative to an additive interaction with fertilization. The fact that fertilization caused a shift in the root‐shoot interaction, but not in the total strength of root and shoot competition, suggests that the root‐shoot interaction is itself a highly labile variable. If root‐shoot interactions are common in natural systems, then simply measuring the strength of one form of competition in no way provides any information about the overall importance of that competitive form to plant growth.     

The importance of analyzing neighbor competitive response in the target–neighbor experimental design

The role of competition in community structure and species interactions is universal. However, how one quantifies the outcome of competitive interactions is frequently debated. Here, we review the strengths and weaknesses of the target–neighbor design, a type of additive design where one of the competing species is reduced to a single individual and where controls and analyses are used for the target, but not for the neighbors. We conducted a literature review to determine how the target–neighbor design has been typically used and analyzed. We found that historically, targets were often smaller than neighbors and introduced after neighbor establishment; thus, targets would have little effect on neighbors. However, as co‐establishment of targets and neighbors of similar size is now common, the target is more likely to affect the neighbors than in its earlier usage. This can be problematic, because if targets have a significant effect on neighbor performance, bias is introduced into the assessment of the target results. As target treatment controls are necessary to determine the absolute effect of neighbors on target growth, we advocate that analysis of the neighbor competitive response serves as a necessary control for unexpected target x neighbor interactions.     

Shifting daylength regimes associated with range shifts alter aphid‐parasitoid community dynamics

With climate change leading to poleward range expansion of species, populations are exposed to new daylength regimes along latitudinal gradients. Daylength is a major factor affecting insect life cycles and activity patterns, so a range shift leading to new daylength regimes is likely to affect population dynamics and species interactions; however, the impact of daylength in isolation on ecological communities has not been studied so far. Here, we tested for the direct and indirect effects of two different daylengths on the dynamics of experimental multitrophic insect communities. We compared the community dynamics under “southern” summer conditions of 14.5‐hr daylight to “northern” summer conditions of 22‐hr daylight. We show that food web dynamics indeed respond to daylength with one aphid species (Acyrthosiphon pisum) reaching much lower population sizes at the northern daylength regime compared to under southern conditions. In contrast, in the same communities, another aphid species (Megoura viciae) reached higher population densities under northern conditions. This effect at the aphid level was driven by an indirect effect of daylength causing a change in competitive interaction strengths, with the different aphid species being more competitive at different daylength regimes. Additionally, increasing daylength also increased growth rates in M. viciae making it more competitive under summer long days. As such, the shift in daylength affected aphid population sizes by both direct and indirect effects, propagating through species interactions. However, contrary to expectations, parasitoids were not affected by daylength. Our results demonstrate that range expansion of whole communities due to climate change can indeed change interaction strengths between species within ecological communities with consequences for community dynamics. This study provides the first evidence of daylength affecting community dynamics, which could not be predicted from studying single species separately.     

Global change and species interactions in terrestrial ecosystems

The main drivers of global environmental change (CO₂ enrichment, nitrogen deposition, climate, biotic invasions and land use) cause extinctions and alter species distributions, and recent evidence shows that they exert pervasive impacts on various antagonistic and mutualistic interactions among species. In this review, we synthesize data from 688 published studies to show that these drivers often alter competitive interactions among plants and animals, exert multitrophic effects on the decomposer food web, increase intensity of pathogen infection, weaken mutualisms involving plants, and enhance herbivory while having variable effects on predation. A recurrent finding is that there is substantial variability among studies in both the magnitude and direction of effects of any given GEC driver on any given type of biotic interaction. Further, we show that higher order effects among multiple drivers acting simultaneously create challenges in predicting future responses to global environmental change, and that extrapolating these complex impacts across entire networks of species interactions yields unanticipated effects on ecosystems. Finally, we conclude that in order to reliably predict the effects of GEC on community and ecosystem processes, the greatest single challenge will be to determine how biotic and abiotic context alters the direction and magnitude of GEC effects on biotic interactions.     

Results of a food addition experiment in a north-central Chile small mammal assemblage: evidence for the role of "bottom-up" factors

Since 1989, effects of biotic interactions including predation and herbivory have been examined in a replicated experimental study in a north‐central Chilean semiarid thorn scrub community. Strong responses of small mammals and plants to El Niño Southern Oscillations (ENSO) have also been documented suggesting that “bottom‐up” factors related to high rainfall are important. To simulate increased primary productivity effects on small mammals, ad lib rabbit pellet additions were initiated in mid‐1997 on unfenced grids near the experimental complex. Following the 1997 El Niño event with three times normal precipitation, numbers of small mammals during pre‐addition months and the first treatment year were similar on control and food addition grids. During the second year (1998–1999), a period of severe drought, food additions had significant positive effects on numbers of two predominantly herbivorous “core” (resident) species, Octodon degus and Phyllotis darwini, and an omnivorous “quasi‐core” (resident but highly fluctuating) species, Akodon olivaceus; however, all three species declined towards the end of the second treatment year. Two “opportunistic” (temporarily resident) species, Abrothrix longipilis (an insectivore) and Oligoryzomys longicaudatus (a granivore), showed no responses to food additions. An insectivorous marsupial, Thylamys elegans (also a “core species”), had significantly lower numbers on food addition grids. Changes in body weight distributions and proportions of reproductive individuals particularly in O. degus indicate in situ responses. Whereas no differences in residency, numbers of stations visited, and trappability were observed, energy compensation ratios greater than one suggest significant immigration in the second year. Thus, food additions elicited strong responses by herbivorous/omnivorous “core” and “quasi‐core species” whereas they had no effects on “opportunistic species”. These results reinforce the view that “bottom‐up” factors influencing food availability exert prevailing control on numerically important small mammal species by temporarily increasing carrying capacity, and that “top‐down” factors (i.e., biotic interactions) become important when small mammal numbers are at or near their carrying capacity. Spatial dynamics may be important in explaining declines of species populations exhibiting initially positive responses to food additions.     

Effect of habitat degradation on competition,carrying capacity,and species assemblage stability

Changes in species’ trophic niches due to habitat degradation can affect intra‐ and interspecific competition, with implications for biodiversity persistence. Difficulties of measuring species’ interactions in the field limit our comprehension of competition outcomes along disturbance gradients. Thus, information on how habitat degradation can destabilize food webs is scarce, hindering predictions regarding responses of multispecies systems to environmental changes. Seagrass ecosystems are undergoing degradation. We address effects of Posidonia oceanica coverage reduction on the trophic organization of a macroinvertebrate community in the Tyrrhenian Sea (Italy), hypothesizing increased trophic generalism, niche overlap among species and thus competition and decreased community stability due to degraded conditions. Census data, isotopic analysis, and Bayesian mixing models were used to quantify the trophic niches of three abundant invertebrate species, and intra‐ and interspecific isotopic and resource‐use similarity across locations differing in seagrass coverage. This allowed the computation of (1) competition strength, with respect to each other and remaining less abundant species and (2) habitat carrying capacity. To explore effects of the spatial scale on the interactions, we considered both individual locations and the entire study area (“‘meadow scale”). We observed that community stability and habitat carrying capacity decreased as P. oceanica coverage declined, whereas niche width, similarity of resource use and interspecific competition strength between species increased. Competition was stronger, and stability lower, at the meadow scale than at the location scale. Indirect effects of competition and the spatial compartmentalization of species interactions increased stability. Results emphasized the importance of trophic niche modifications for understanding effects of habitat loss on biodiversity persistence. Calculation of competition coefficients based on isotopic distances is a promising tool for describing competitive interactions in real communities, potentially extendible to any subset of ecological niche axes for which specimens’ positions and pairwise distances can be obtained.     

Rare species in communities of tropical insect herbivores: pondering the mystery of singletons

The host specificity, taxonomic composition and feeding guild of rare species were studied in communities of herbivorous insects in New Guinea. Leaf‐chewing and sap‐sucking insects (Orthoptera, Phasmatodea, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Hemiptera‐Auchenorrhyncha) were sampled from 30 species of trees and shrubs (15 spp. of Ficus, Moraceae, six spp. of Macaranga and nine species of other Euphorbiaceae) in a lowland rain forest. Feeding trials were performed with all leaf‐chewers in order to exclude transient species. Overall, the sampling produced 80 062 individuals of 1050 species. The species accumulation curve did not attain an asymptote, despite 950 person‐days of sampling. Rare species, defined as those found as single individuals, remained numerous even in large samples and after the exclusion of transient, non‐feeding species. There was no difference among plant species in the proportion of rare species in their herbivore communities, which was, on average, 45%. Likewise, various herbivore guilds and taxa had all very similar proportions of rare and common species. There was also no difference between rare and common species in their host specificity. Both highly specialised species and generalists, feeding on numerous plants, contributed to the singleton records on particular plant species. Predominantly, a species was rare on a particular host whilst more common on other, often related, host species, or relatively rare on numerous other host plants, so that its aggregate population was high. Both cases are an example of the “mass effect”, since it is probable that such rare species were dependent on a constant influx of immigrants from the other host plants. These other plants were found particularly often among congeneric plants, less so among confamilial plants from different genera and least frequently among plants from different families. There were also 278 very rare species, found as one individual on a single plant species only. Their host specificity could not be assessed; they might have been either very rare specialists, or species feeding also on other plants, those that were not studied. The former possibility is unlikely since monophagous species, collected as singletons at the present sampling effort, would have existed at an extremely low population density, less than 1 individual per 10 ha of the forest.     

No species is an island: testing the effects of biotic interactions on models of avian niche occupation

Traditionally, the niche of a species is described as a hypothetical 3D space, constituted by well‐known biotic interactions (e.g. predation, competition, trophic relationships, resource–consumer interactions, etc.) and various abiotic environmental factors. Species distribution models (SDMs), also called “niche models” and often used to predict wildlife distribution at landscape scale, are typically constructed using abiotic factors with biotic interactions generally been ignored. Here, we compared the goodness of fit of SDMs for red‐backed shrike Lanius collurio in farmlands of Western Poland, using both the classical approach (modeled only on environmental variables) and the approach which included also other potentially associated bird species. The potential associations among species were derived from the relevant ecological literature and by a correlation matrix of occurrences. Our findings highlight the importance of including heterospecific interactions in improving our understanding of niche occupation for bird species. We suggest that suite of measures currently used to quantify realized species niches could be improved by also considering the occurrence of certain associated species. Then, an hypothetical “species 1” can use the occurrence of a successfully established individual of “species 2” as indicator or “trace” of the location of available suitable habitat to breed. We hypothesize this kind of biotic interaction as the “heterospecific trace effect” (HTE): an interaction based on the availability and use of “public information” provided by individuals from different species. Finally, we discuss about the incomes of biotic interactions for enhancing the predictive capacities on species distribution models.     

Abundance patterns and coexistence processes in communities of fleas parasitic on small mammals

The abundance of a given species in a community is likely to depend on both the total abundance and diversity of other species making up that community. A large number of co-occurring individuals or co-occurring species may decrease the abundance of any given species via diffuse competition; however, indirect interactions among many co-occurring species can have positive effects on a focal species. The existence of diffuse competition and facilitation remain difficult to demonstrate in natural communities. Here, we use data on communities of fleas ectoparasitic on small mammals from 27 distinct geographical regions to test whether the abundance of any given flea species in a community is affected by either the total abundance of all other co-occurring flea species, or the species richness and/or taxonomic diversity of the flea community. At all scales of analysis, i.e. whether we compared the same flea species on different host species, or different flea species, two consistent results emerged. First, the abundance of a given flea species correlates positively with the total abundance of all other co-occurring flea species in the community. Second, the abundance of any given flea species correlates negatively with either the species richness or taxonomic diversity of the flea community. The results do not support the existence of diffuse competition in these assemblages, because the more individuals of other flea species are present on a host population, the more individuals of the focal species are there as well. Instead, we propose explanations involving either apparent facilitation among flea species via suppression of host immune defenses, or niche filtering processes acting to restrict the taxonomic composition and abundance of flea assemblages.     

Invasive plants negatively impact native,but not exotic,animals

Despite our growing understanding of the impacts of invasive plants on ecosystem structure and function, important gaps remain, including whether native and exotic species respond differently to plant invasion. This would elucidate basic ecological interactions and inform management. We performed a meta‐analytic review of the effects of invasive plants on native and exotic resident animals. We found that invasive plants reduced the abundance of native, but not exotic, animals. This varied by animal phyla, with invasive plants reducing the abundance of native annelids and chordates, but not mollusks or arthropods. We found dissimilar impacts among “wet” and “dry” ecosystems, but not among animal trophic levels. Additionally, the impact of invasive plants increased over time, but this did not vary with animal nativity. Our review found that no studies considered resident nativity differences, and most did not identify animals to species. We call for more rigorous studies of invaded community impacts across taxa, and most importantly, explicit consideration of resident biogeographic origin. We provide an important first insight into how native and exotic species respond differently to invasion, the consequences of which may facilitate cascading trophic disruptions further exacerbating global change consequences to ecosystem structure and function.     

The impacts of different management strategies and environmental forcing in ecological communities

Understanding the effects of population management on the community a target species belongs to is of key importance for successful management. It is known that the removal or extinction of a single species in a community may lead to extinctions of other community members. In our study, we assess the impacts of population management on competitive communities, studying the response of both locally stable and unstable communities of varying size (between four and 10 species) to three different management strategies; harvesting of a target species, harvesting with non-targeted catch, and stocking of the target species. We also studied the consequences of selecting target species with different relative abundances, as well as the effects of varying environmental conditions.We show here how the effects of management in competitive communities extend far beyond the target population. A crucial role is played by the underlying stability properties of the community under management. In general, locally unstable communities are more vulnerable to perturbation through management. Furthermore, the community response is shown to be sensitive to the relative density of the target species. Of considerable interest is the result that even a small (2.5%) increase in the population size of the target species through stocking may lead to extinction of other community members. These results emphasize the importance of considering and understanding multi-species interactions in population management.     

Growth and competition in clonal plants-persistence of shoot populations and species diversity

This paper reviews studies on growth and size-structure dynamics of shoots and clones in clonal plants in comparison with those in non-clonal plants, and discusses the characteristics of clonal plants. The mode of competition between individuals (symmetric versus asymmetric, degree of competitive asymmetry), growth dynamics of individuals, allocation pattern between organs and spatial pattern of individuals are closely correlated with each other in non-clonal plant populations. Theoretical and field studies based on the diffusion model revealed that plants of “height-growth” type (mostly early-successional tree species) and plants of “diameter-growth” type (mostly late-successional tree species) tend to exhibit asymmetric competition and symmetric competition respectively. Moreover, asymmetrically competing plants show smaller effects of variation in individual growth rate and spatial pattern on the size-structure dynamics of the population than symmetrically competing plants. Thefefore, the spatial pattern of inviduals should be considered especially for plants undergoing symmetric competition. These results for non-clonal plants should have a significant implication also for the growth dynamics and competition in clonal plants. The mean growth rate of shoots [G(t,x) function] and hence the mode of competition between shoots differs among clonal plant species as in non-clonal plants. However, a large magnitude and size-independence (or slightly negative size-dependence) of the variation in growth rate of shoots [D(t,x) function], especially at the early stage in a growing season is a common characteristic of many clonal plant species, in contrast to the positively size-dependent variation in individual growth rate in non-clonal plants. This type of variation in shoot growth rate leads to the persistence of stable shoot populations even when the mean growth rate function is changed, and also in cases where the shoot population structure would be unstable in the absence of variation in growth rate. It is suggested that competition between clones is symmetric in most clonal plant species, which brings about small-scale spatio-temporal changes in species abundance and hence species diversity.