Microhabitat amelioration and reduced competition among understorey plants as drivers of facilitation across environmental gradients: towards a unifying framework.

ABSTRACT: Studies of facilitative interactions as drivers of plant richness along environmental gradients often assume the existence of an overarching stress gradient equally affecting the performance of all the species in a given community. However, co-existing species differ in their ecophysiological adaptations, and do not experience the same stress level under particular environmental conditions. Moreover, these studies assume a unimodal richness-biomass curve, which is not as general as previously thought. We ignored these assumptions to assess changes in plant-plant interactions, and their effect on local species richness, across environmental gradients in semi-arid areas of Spain and Australia. We aimed to understand the relative importance of direct (microhabitat amelioration) and indirect (

SUBMITTER: Soliveres S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4407968 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature