Seed limitation interacts with biotic and abiotic factors to constrain novel species’ impact on community biomass and richness
Pichon, Noémie A.; Kaarlejärvi, Elina; Eskelinen, Anu (2023-05-24)
Pichon, N.A., Kaarlejärvi, E. & Eskelinen, A. (2023) Seed limitation interacts with biotic and abiotic factors to constrain novel species' impact on community biomass and richness. Ecology Letters, 26, 908–918. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14219
© 2023 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe20230918130224
Tiivistelmä
Abstract
Seed limitation can narrow down the number of coexisting plant species, limit plant community productivity, and also constrain community responses to changing environmental and biotic conditions. In a 10-year full-factorial experiment of seed addition, fertilisation, warming and herbivore exclusion, we tested how seed addition alters community richness and biomass, and how its effects depend on seed origin and biotic and abiotic context. We found that seed addition increased species richness in all treatments, and increased plant community biomass depending on nutrient addition and warming. Novel species, originally absent from the communities, increased biomass the most, especially in fertilised plots and in the absence of herbivores, while adding seeds of local species did not affect biomass. Our results show that seed limitation constrains both community richness and biomass, and highlight the importance of considering trophic interactions and soil nutrients when assessing novel species immigrations and their effects on community biomass.
Kokoelmat
- Avoin saatavuus [38358]
