Fitness and niche differences are both important in explaining responses of plant diversity to nutrient addition

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985939%3A_____%2F23%3A00576784" target="_blank" >RIV/67985939:_____/23:00576784 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4125" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4125</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4125" target="_blank" >10.1002/ecy.4125</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Fitness and niche differences are both important in explaining responses of plant diversity to nutrient addition

Original language description

Plant species loss due to eutrophication is a common phenomenon in temperate perennial grasslands. It occurs in a non-random fashion and is usually explained by increased competitive size asymmetry between co-occurring winner (tall species with optima in productive habitats) and loser species (small-statured plants typical for unproductive habitats). It remains unclear why nutrient addition decreases diversity in communities consisting of losers only, whereas it has little effect on winner-only communities. Here, I used the framework of modern coexistence theory to explore fertilization-driven changes in fitness and niche differences between different combinations of field-identified winner (W) and loser (L) species. I experimentally estimated competition parameters for plant species pairs constructed from a pool of eight species, including pairs of species from the same (WW, LL) and different species categories (LW) grown for approximately two years in control and fertilized conditions. Concurrently, I also followed plant species diversity in mesocosm communities constructed from the same species pool (four-species communities including winners, losers, or both) exposed to control and nutrient addition. I found that nutrient addition can reduce but, unexpectedly, also promote species coexistence depending on the type of species pairs. Whereas nutrient addition eroded coexistence of losers with winners, but also with other losers, treatment had the opposite effect on the persistence of winner species. Fertilization induced large fitness differences between species in loser-winner and loser-loser combinations, but had little effect on the fitness differences of species within the winner-winner combination. In addition, the persistence of winner pairs was promoted by larger niche differences compared to loser species, irrespective of soil nutrients. The differences in how nutrient addition modified coexistence at the pairwise level was reflected by differences in evenness of multispecies communities assembled from the corresponding species categories. These results suggest that the effect of eutrophication on plant species richness cannot simply be explained by an increased competitive asymmetry. To fully understand the effect of fertilization on the diversity of temperate grasslands, interspecific and intraspecific interactions should be explored while considering differences in species’ ecological optima.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2023

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Ecology

ISSN

0012-9658

e-ISSN

1939-9170

Volume of the periodical

104

Issue of the periodical within the volume

8

Country of publishing house

US - UNITED STATES

Number of pages

14

Pages from-to

e4125

UT code for WoS article

001022425700001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85164333254