IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0260215.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Spatial associations between plants and vegetation community characteristics provide insights into the processes influencing plant rarity

Author

Listed:
  • Meena S Sritharan
  • Ben C Scheele
  • Wade Blanchard
  • David B Lindenmayer

Abstract

Determining the drivers of plant rarity is a major challenge in ecology. Analysing spatial associations between different plant species can provide an exploratory avenue for understanding the ecological drivers of plant rarity. Here, we examined the different types of spatial associations between rare and common plants to determine if they influence the occurrence patterns of rare species. We completed vegetation surveys at 86 sites in woodland, forest, and heath communities in south-east Australia. We also examined two different rarity measures to quantify how categorisation criteria affected our results. Rare species were more likely to have positive associations with both rare and common species across all three vegetation communities. However, common species had positive or negative associations with rare and other common species, depending on the vegetation community in which they occurred. Rare species were positively associated with species diversity in forest communities. In woodland communities, rare species were associated negatively with species diversity but positively associated with species evenness. Rare species with high habitat specificity were more clustered spatially than expected by chance. Efforts to understand the drivers of plant rarity should use rarity definitions that consider habitat specificity. Our findings suggest that examining spatial associations between plants can help understand the drivers of plant rarity.

Suggested Citation

  • Meena S Sritharan & Ben C Scheele & Wade Blanchard & David B Lindenmayer, 2021. "Spatial associations between plants and vegetation community characteristics provide insights into the processes influencing plant rarity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-18, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0260215
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260215
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0260215
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0260215&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0260215?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan M. Levine & Janneke HilleRisLambers, 2009. "The importance of niches for the maintenance of species diversity," Nature, Nature, vol. 461(7261), pages 254-257, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dandan Liu & Anmin Huang & Dewei Yang & Jianyi Lin & Jiahui Liu, 2021. "Niche-Driven Socio-Environmental Linkages and Regional Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-17, January.
    2. Sergey Bartsev & Andrey Degermendzhi, 2023. "The Evolutionary Mechanism of Formation of Biosphere Closure," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-22, July.
    3. David García-Callejas & Ignasi Bartomeus & Oscar Godoy, 2021. "The spatial configuration of biotic interactions shapes coexistence-area relationships in an annual plant community," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-8, December.
    4. Wojciech Bierza & Joanna Czarnecka & Agnieszka Błońska & Agnieszka Kompała-Bąba & Agnieszka Hutniczak & Bartosz Jendrzejek & Jawdat Bakr & Andrzej M. Jagodziński & Dariusz Prostański & Gabriela Woźnia, 2023. "Plant Diversity and Species Composition in Relation to Soil Enzymatic Activity in the Novel Ecosystems of Urban–Industrial Landscapes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-18, April.
    5. Inga Dirks & Juliane Streit & Catharina Meinen, 2021. "Above and Belowground Relative Yield Total of Clover–Ryegrass Mixtures Exceed One in Wet and Dry Years," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15, March.
    6. Roberto Cazzolla Gatti & Roger Koppl & Brian D. Fath & Stuart Kauffman & Wim Hordijk & Robert E. Ulanowicz, 2020. "On the emergence of ecological and economic niches," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 99-127, July.
    7. Jian-Xiong Huang & Jian Zhang & Yong Shen & Ju-yu Lian & Hong-lin Cao & Wan-hui Ye & Lin-fang Wu & Yue Bin, 2014. "Different Relationships between Temporal Phylogenetic Turnover and Phylogenetic Similarity and in Two Forests Were Detected by a New Null Model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(4), pages 1-7, April.
    8. Shengman Lyu & Jake M. Alexander, 2022. "Competition contributes to both warm and cool range edges," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    9. Yingming Yang & Xikai Wang & Yunlan He & Kaiming Zhang & Fan Mo & Weilong Zhang & Gang Liu, 2022. "Using Isotopic Labeling to Investigate Artemisia ordosica Root Water Uptake Depth in the Eastern Margin of Mu Us Sandy Land," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-16, November.
    10. Lan Zhang & Guowen Huang & Yongtao Li & Shitai Bao, 2021. "Quantitative Research Methods of Linguistic Niche and Cultural Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-12, August.
    11. Zhang, Zeyu & Bearup, Daniel & Guo, Guanming & Zhang, Helin & Liao, Jinbao, 2022. "Competition modes determine ecosystem stability in rock–paper–scissors games," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 607(C).
    12. Wanrui Zhu & Wenhua Li & Peili Shi & Jiansheng Cao & Ning Zong & Shoubao Geng, 2021. "Intensified Interspecific Competition for Water after Afforestation with Robinia pseudoacacia into a Native Shrubland in the Taihang Mountains, Northern China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-16, January.
    13. Gatti, Roberto Cazzolla & Hordijk, Wim & Kauffman, Stuart, 2017. "Biodiversity is autocatalytic," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 346(C), pages 70-76.
    14. Yang, Yiling & Xiong, Kangning & Xiao, Jie, 2024. "A review of agroforestry biodiversity-driven provision of ecosystem services and implications for karst desertification control," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0260215. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.