Simulating Groundcover Community Assembly in a Frequently Burned Ecosystem Using a Simple Neutral Model.

ABSTRACT: Fire is a keystone process that drives patterns of biodiversity globally. In frequently burned fire-dependent ecosystems, surface fire regimes allow for the coexistence of high plant diversity at fine scales even where soils are uniform. The mechanisms on how fire impacts groundcover community dynamics are, however, poorly understood. Because fire can act as a stochastic agent of mortality, we hypothesized that a neutral mechanism might be responsible for maintaining plant diversity. We used the demographic parameters of the unified neutral theory of biodiversity (UNTB) as a foundation to model groundcover species richness, using a southeastern US pine woodland as an example. We followed the fate of over 7,000 individuals of 123 plant species for 4 years and two prescribed burns in frequen

SUBMITTER: Loudermilk EL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6753978 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature