Nurse plant effects on plant species richness in drylands: the role of grazing, rainfall and species specificity.

ABSTRACT: The outcome of plant-plant interactions depends on environmental (e.g. grazing, climatic conditions) and species-specific attributes (e.g. life strategy and dispersal mode of the species involved). However, the joint effects of such factors on pairwise plant-plant interactions, and how they modulate the role of these interactions at the community level, have not been addressed before. We assessed how these species-specific (life strategy and dispersal) and environmental (grazing and rainfall) factors affected the co-occurrence of 681 plant species pairs on open woodlands in south-eastern Australia. Species-specific attributes affected the co-occurrence of most species pairs, with higher co-occurrence levels dominating for drought-intolerant species. The dispersal mechanism only affected dr

SUBMITTER: Soliveres S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4407966 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature