Effect of forest structure and management on the functional diversity and composition of understorey plant communities

Questions Do forest structural parameters related to stand heterogeneity enhance functional diversity (FD) of understorey plant communities? Do FD and functional composition of understorey plant communities vary between high-forest (HF) and old coppices-with-standard (oldCWS) management types? Are HF stands characterized by a higher FD than oldCWS? Location Submediterranean beech forests of Montagne della Duchessa Reserve (central Italy). Methods We sampled 57 (20 m × 20 m) forest plots, 29 oldCWS and 28 HF stands, where we recorded plant species cover abundance. We used Leaf–Height–Seed and clonal traits, and run multiple separate linear models to quantify the effect of forest structural parameters and management types on FD and functional composition of understorey plant communities. Results We found that increasing lying deadwood enhanced FD of specific leaf area (SLA) through micro-environmental heterogeneity of soil fertility regardless of management type. We also found that increased horizontal stratification filtered the range of plant sizes, probably through light reduction. HF management enhanced FD of SLA and clonal traits through micro-environmental heterogeneity, while reducing the FD of plant size and seed mass. HF tended to select plant communities characterized by high resource acquisition strategies but lower persistence between ramets, possibly as an effect of more mature forest conditions. Conclusion Our study suggests that understorey plant community diversity and composition change in response to forest structure and management. Combining Leaf–Height–Seed with clonal traits offers a promising framework for understanding and predicting plant response to management practices

Biodiversidad vegetal y ciudad: aproximaciones desde la ecología urbana

Texto resumen

Plant biodiversity and city: approaches from urban ecology

Texto resumen

Biodiversidad vegetal y ciudad: aproximaciones desde la ecología urbana

Texto resumen

Plant biodiversity and city: approaches from urban ecology

Texto resumen

Plant biodiversity and city: approaches from urban ecology

Texto resumen

Community-level flammability declines over 25 years of plant invasion in grasslands

1. Exotic plant invasions can alter fire regimes in plant communities. Invaders often possess traits that differ from native plants in the community, resulting in increases or declines in community-level flammability, changing fire regimes and potentially causing long-term modifications to plant community composition. Although considering traits of multiple invaders and native species together is useful to better understand how invasions change community-level flammability, few studies have done this. 2. We measured morphological and flammability traits of 51 native and exotic plant species common in tussock grasslands in New Zealand's south-eastern South Island to examine relationships between morphology and whole-plant and shoot-level flammability. Plant community data from 103 permanent transects in this region measured over a 25-year period (c. 1982-2007) were used to determine how flammability changed with increasing levels of plant invasion. 3. Invasion by exotic plants has led to reduced community-level flammability due to shifts from native tussock grasses with high flammability and high fuel loads to mat-forming exotic forbs with low flammability and little fuel. These changes will likely lead to considerable alterations to the fire regime, resulting in lower intensity fires that burn more patchily and for shorter amounts of time, potentially causing further changes in floristic composition. We found considerable differences in flammability across the wide range of species and growth forms that we studied, emphasising the importance of quantifying species-level flammability and the need to avoid treating grasslands as homogenous in terms of their flammability. Total biomass, leaf length and leaf area were the traits most positively correlated with flammability in these tussock grasslands. 4. Synthesis. We show how plant invasions over decadal time-scales have reduced the community-level flammability of tussock grasslands and, for the first time, demonstrate how this can be driven by exotic forbs. The total biomass of constituent species is a useful surrogate for community flammability across a wide range of species and growth forms in both temperate grasslands and savanna ecosystems and should be used in dynamic global vegetation models to assess how flammability varies under various global change scenarios

Data from: Community-level flammability declines over 25 years of plant invasion in grasslands

1. Exotic plant invasions can alter fire regimes in plant communities. Invaders often possess traits that differ from native plants in the community, resulting in increases or declines in community-level flammability, changing fire regimes, and potentially causing long-term modifications to plant community composition. Although considering traits of multiple invaders and native species together is useful to better understand how invasions change community-level flammability, few studies have done this. 2 Measured morphological and flammability traits of 51 native and exotic plant species common in tussock grasslands in New Zealand’s south-eastern South Island to examine relationships between morphology and whole-plant and shoot-level flammability. Plant community data from 103 permanent transects in this region measured over a 25 year period (c. 1982-2007) were used to determine how flammability changed with increasing levels of plant invasion. 3. Invasion by exotic plants has led to reduced community-level flammability due to shifts from native tussock grasses with high flammability and high fuel loads to mat-forming exotic forbs with low flammability and little fuel. These changes will likely lead to considerable alterations to the fire regime, resulting in lower intensity fires that burn more patchily and for shorter amounts of time, potentially causing further changes in floristic composition. We found considerable differences in flammability across the wide range of species and growth forms that we studied, emphasising the importance of quantifying species-level flammability and the need to avoid treating grasslands as homogenous in terms of their flammability. Total biomass, leaf length and leaf area were the traits most positively correlated with flammability in these tussock grasslands. 4. SYNTHESIS. We show how plant invasions over decadal timescales have reduced the community-level flammability of tussock grasslands and, for the first time, demonstrate how this can be driven by exotic forbs. The total biomass of constituent species is a useful surrogate for community flammability across a wide range of species and growth forms in both temperate grasslands and savanna ecosystems and should be used in dynamic global vegetation models to assess how flammability varies under various global change scenarios

Shoot flammability of vascular plants is phylogenetically conserved and related to habitat fire-proneness and growth form

Terrestrial plants and fire have interacted for at least 420 million years. Whether recurrent fire drives plants to evolve higher flammability and what the evolutionary pattern of plant flammability is remain unclear. Here, we show that phylogeny, the susceptibility of a habitat to have recurrent fires (that is, fire-proneness) and growth form are important predictors of the shoot flammability of 194 indigenous and introduced vascular plant species (Tracheophyta) from New Zealand. The phylogenetic signal of the flammability components and the variation in flammability among phylogenetic groups (families and higher taxonomic level clades) demonstrate that shoot flammability is phylogenetically conserved. Some closely related species, such as in Dracophyllum (Ericaceae), vary in flammability, indicating that flammability exhibits evolutionary flexibility. Species in fire-prone ecosystems tend to be more flammable than species from non-fire-prone ecosystems, suggesting that fire may have an important role in the evolution of plant flammability. Growth form also influenced flammability—forbs were less flammable than grasses, trees and shrubs; by contrast, grasses had higher biomass consumption by fire than other groups. The results show that shoot flammability of plants is largely correlated with phylogenetic relatedness, and high flammability may result in parallel evolution driven by environmental factors, such as fire regime