9 research outputs found
Multi-scale environmental filters and niche partitioning govern the distributions of riparian vegetation guilds
Across landscapes, riparian plant communities assemble under varying levels of disturbance, environmental stress, and resource availability, leading to the development of distinct riparian life-history guilds over evolutionary timescales. Identifying the environmental filters that exert selective pressures on specific riparian vegetation guilds is a critical step in setting baseline expectations for how riparian vegetation may respond to environmental conditions anticipated under future global change scenarios. In this study, we ask: (1) What riparian plant guilds exist across the interior Columbia and upper Missouri River basins? (2) What environmental filters shape riparian guild distributions? (3) How does resource partitioning among guilds influence guild distributions and co-occurrence? Woody species composition was measured at 703 stream reaches and each species\u27 morphological and functional attributes were extracted from a database in four categories: (1) life form, (2) persistence and growth, (3) reproduction, and (4) resource use. We clustered species into guilds by morphological characteristics and attributes related to environmental tolerances, modeling these guilds\u27 distributions as a function of environmental filters-regional climate, watershed hydrogeomorphic characteristics, and stream channel form- and guild coexistence. We identified five guilds: (1) a tall, deeply rooted, long-lived, evergreen tree guild, (2) a xeric, disturbance tolerant shrub guild, (3) a hydrophytic, thicket-forming shrub guild, (4) a low-statured, shadetolerant, understory shrub guild, and (5) a flood tolerant, mesoriparian shrub guild. Guilds were most strongly discriminated by species\u27 rooting depth, canopy height and potential to resprout and grow following biomass-removing disturbance (e.g., flooding, fire). Hydro-climatic variables, including precipitation, watershed area, water table depth, and channel form attributes reflective of hydrologic regime, were predictors of guilds whose life history strategies had affinity or aversion to flooding, drought, and fluvial disturbance. Biotic interactions excluded guilds with divergent life history strategies and/or allowed for the co-occurrence of guilds that partition resources differently in the same environment. We conclude that the riparian guild framework provides insight into how disturbance and bioclimatic gradients shape riparian functional plant diversity across heterogeneous landscapes. Multiple environmental filters should be considered when the riparian response guild framework is to be used as a decisionsupport tool framework across large spatial extents. Copyright: © 2015 Hough-Snee et al
Passive soil manipulation influences the successional trajectories of forest communities at a denuded former campsite.
<p>Hough-Snee, N., A.L. Long and R. Pond. 2012. Passive soil manipulation influences the successional trajectories of forest communities at a denuded former campsite. Ecological Restoration 30(1): 9-12.</p
Mounding alters environmental filters that drive plant community development in a novel grassland.
<p>Hough-Snee, N., A.L. Long, L. Jeroue and K. Ewing. 2011. Mounding alters environmental filters that drive plant community development in a novel grassland. Ecological Engineering 37(11): 1932-1936. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2011.06.013</p
Riparian vegetation guilds: applications to small streams of the interior Pacific Northwest
<p>This talk delivers conceptual models of riparian ecosystems and applies the Riparian Flow Guilds framework of Merritt et al. 2009 and Merritt et al. 2010.</p>
<p>Citation:</p>
<p>Nate Hough-Snee, Brian G. Laub, David M. Merritt, Brett B. Roper, A. Lexine Long, Lloyd L. Nackley, Joseph M. Wheaton. 2014. Riparian vegetation guilds: applications to small streams of the interior Pacific Northwest. Delivered to Restoring the West, Logan, UT 2014.</p
Appendix C. Goodness-of-fit statistics for environmental filters and riparian guilds fit to the NMDS ordination solution for guild assemblages.
Goodness-of-fit statistics for environmental filters and riparian guilds fit to the NMDS ordination solution for guild assemblages
Appendix B. Correlations between species’ life history traits and the principal coordinate analysis ordination.
Correlations between species’ life history traits and the principal coordinate analysis ordination
Appendix A. Summary of the categorical, morphological, and physical attributes by guild.
Summary of the categorical, morphological, and physical attributes by guild