Disentangling the processes driving plant assemblages in mountain grasslands across spatial scales and environmental gradients

0505214 - BÚ 2020 RIV GB eng J - Journal Article
Scherrer, D. - Mod, H. K. - Pottier, J. - Litsios-Dubuis, A. - Pellissier, L. - Vittoz, P. - Götzenberger, Lars - Zobel, M. - Guisan, A.
Disentangling the processes driving plant assemblages in mountain grasslands across spatial scales and environmental gradients.
Journal of Ecology. Roč. 107, č. 1 (2019), s. 265-278. ISSN 0022-0477. E-ISSN 1365-2745
Institutional support: RVO:67985939
Keywords : community assembly * ecological gradient * niche differentiation
OECD category: Ecology
Impact factor: 5.762, year: 2019
Method of publishing: Open access

We found habitat filtering was the dominating assembly process at the plot level with diminished effect at the subplot level, whereas limiting similarity prevailed at the subplot level with weaker average effect at the plot level. Plot‐level limiting similarity was positively correlated with fine‐scale partitioning, suggesting that the trait divergence resulted from a combination of competitive exclusion between functionally similar species and environmental micro‐heterogeneities. Overall, signatures of assembly processes only marginally changed along environmental gradients, but the observed trends were more prominent at the plot than at the subplot scale. Our study emphasises the importance of considering multiple assembly processes and traits simultaneously across spatial scales and environmental gradients to understand the complex drivers of plant community composition.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0296706