Dataset Information

Coupling spectral and resource-use complementarity in experimental grassland and forest communities.

ABSTRACT: Reflectance spectra provide integrative measures of plant phenotypes by capturing chemical, morphological, anatomical and architectural trait information. Here, we investigate the linkages between plant spectral variation, and spectral and resource-use complementarity that contribute to ecosystem productivity. In both a forest and prairie grassland diversity experiment, we delineated n-dimensional hypervolumes using wavelength bands of reflectance spectra to test the association between the spectral space occupied by individual plants and their growth, as well as between the spectral space occupied by plant communities and ecosystem productivity. We show that the spectral space occupied by individuals increased with their growth, and the spectral space occupied by plant communities increased with ecosystem productivity. Furthermore, ecosystem productivity was better explained by inter-individual spectral complementarity than by the large spectral space occupied by productive individuals. Our results indicate that spectral hypervolumes of plants can reflect ecological strategies that shape community composition and ecosystem function, and that spectral complementarity can reveal resource-use complementarity.

SUBMITTER: Schweiger AK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8437019 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Coupling spectral and resource-use complementarity in experimental grassland and forest communities.

Schweiger Anna K AK Cavender-Bares Jeannine J Kothari Shan S Townsend Philip A PA Madritch Michael D MD Grossman Jake J JJ Gholizadeh Hamed H Wang Ran R Gamon John A JA

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20210901 1958

Reflectance spectra provide integrative measures of plant phenotypes by capturing chemical, morphological, anatomical and architectural trait information. Here, we investigate the linkages between plant spectral variation, and spectral and resource-use complementarity that contribute to ecosystem productivity. In both a forest and prairie grassland diversity experiment, we delineated <i>n</i>-dimensional hypervolumes using wavelength bands of reflectance spectra to test the association between t ...[more]

PMID: 34465243

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Project description:Poaching of forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) for ivory has decimated their populations in Central Africa. Studying elephant movement can provide insight into habitat and resource use to reveal where, when, and why they move and guide conservation efforts. We fitted 17 forest elephants with global positioning system (GPS) collars in 2015 and 2016 in the tropical forest-grassland mosaic of the Wonga Wongué Presidential Reserve (WW), Gabon. Using the location data, we quantified movement distances, home ranges, and habitat use to examine the environmental drivers of elephant movements and predict where elephants occur spatially and temporally. Forest elephants, on average, traveled 2,840 km annually and had home ranges of 713 km2, with males covering significantly larger home ranges than females. Forest elephants demonstrated both daily and seasonal movement patterns. Daily, they moved between forest and grassland at dawn and dusk. Seasonally, they spent proportionally more time in grassland than forest during the short-wet season when grasses recruit. Forest elephants also traveled faster during the short-wet season when fruit availability was greatest, likely reflecting long, direct movements to preferred fruiting tree species. Forest elephants tended to select areas with high tree and shrub density that afford cover and browse. When villages occurred in their home ranges elephants spent a disproportionate amount of time near them, particularly in the dry season, probably for access to agricultural crops and preferred habitat. Given the importance of the grassland habitat for elephants, maintenance of the forest-grassland matrix is a conservation priority in WW. Law enforcement, outreach, and education should focus on areas of potential human-elephant conflict near villages along the borders of the reserve. GPS-tracking should be extended into multi-use areas in the peripheries of protected areas to evaluate the effects of human disturbance on elephant movements and to maintain connectivity among elephant populations in Gabon.

Project description:IntroductionContinuous nitrogen deposition increases the nitrogen content of terrestrial ecosystem and affects the geochemical cycle of soil nitrogen. Forest-grassland ecotone is the interface area of forest and grassland and is sensitive to global climate change. However, the structure composition and diversity of soil microbial communities and their relationship with soil environmental factors at increasing nitrogen deposition have not been sufficiently studied in forest-grassland ecotone.MethodsIn this study, experiments were carried out with four nitrogen addition treatments (0 kgN·hm-2·a-1, 10 kgN·hm-2·a-1, 20 kgN·hm-2·a-1 and 40 kgN·hm-2·a-1) to simulate nitrogen deposition in a forest-grassland ecotone in northwest Liaoning Province, China. High-throughput sequencing and qPCR technologies were used to analyze the composition, structure, and diversity characteristics of the soil microbial communities under different levels of nitrogen addition.Results and discussionThe results showed that soil pH decreased significantly at increasing nitrogen concentrations, and the total nitrogen and ammonium nitrogen contents first increased and then decreased, which were significantly higher in the N10 treatment than in other treatments (N:0.32 ~ 0.48 g/kg; NH4+-N: 11.54 ~ 13 mg/kg). With the increase in nitrogen concentration, the net nitrogen mineralization, nitrification, and ammoniation rates decreased. The addition of nitrogen had no significant effect on the diversity and structure of the fungal community, while the diversity of the bacterial community decreased significantly at increasing nitrogen concentrations. Ascomycetes and Actinomycetes were the dominant fungal and bacterial phyla, respectively. The relative abundance of Ascomycetes was negatively correlated with total nitrogen content, while that of Actinomycetes was positively correlated with soil pH. The fungal community diversity was significantly negatively correlated with nitrate nitrogen, while the diversity of the bacterial community was significantly positively correlated with soil pH. No significant differences in the abundance of functional genes related to soil nitrogen transformations under the different treatments were observed. Overall, the distribution pattern and driving factors were different in soil microbial communities in a forest-grassland ecotone in northwest Liaoning. Our study enriches research content related to factors that affect the forest-grassland ecotone.

Dataset Information

Coupling spectral and resource-use complementarity in experimental grassland and forest communities.

Publications

Coupling spectral and resource-use complementarity in experimental grassland and forest communities.

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