Regeneration niche differentiates functional strategies of desert woody plant species.

ABSTRACT: Plant communities vary dramatically in the number and relative abundance of species that exhibit facilitative interactions, which contributes substantially to variation in community structure and dynamics. Predicting species' responses to neighbors based on readily measurable functional traits would provide important insight into the factors that structure plant communities. We measured a suite of functional traits on seedlings of 20 species and mature plants of 54 species of shrubs from three arid biogeographic regions. We hypothesized that species with different regeneration niches-those that require nurse plants for establishment (beneficiaries) versus those that do not (colonizers)-are functionally different. Indeed, seedlings of beneficiary species had lower relative growth rates, lar

SUBMITTER: Butterfield BJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3021705 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature