Belowground plant parts are crucial for comprehensively estimating total plant richness in herbaceous and woody habitats
Abstract Most studies consider aboveground plant species richness as a representative biodiversity measure. This approach inevitably assumes that the partitioning of total plant species richness into above‐ and belowground components is constant or at least consistent within and across vegetation ty...
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crwiley:10.1002/ecy.2575 2024-09-15T18:39:41+00:00 Belowground plant parts are crucial for comprehensively estimating total plant richness in herbaceous and woody habitats Träger, Sabrina Öpik, Maarja Vasar, Martti Wilson, Scott D. Sihtasutus Archimedes University of Regina Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Haridus- ja Teadusministeerium 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2575 https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fecy.2575 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ecy.2575 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ecy.2575 https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ecy.2575 en eng Wiley http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor Ecology volume 100, issue 2 ISSN 0012-9658 1939-9170 journal-article 2019 crwiley https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2575 2024-08-30T04:12:06Z Abstract Most studies consider aboveground plant species richness as a representative biodiversity measure. This approach inevitably assumes that the partitioning of total plant species richness into above‐ and belowground components is constant or at least consistent within and across vegetation types. However, with studies considering belowground plant richness still scarce and completely absent along vegetation gradients, this assumption lacks experimental support. Novel DNA sequencing techniques allow economical, high‐throughput species identification of belowground environmental samples, enabling the measurement of the contributions of both above‐ and belowground plant components to total plant richness. We investigated above‐ and belowground plant species richness in four vegetation types (birch forest, heath, low alpine tundra, high alpine tundra) at the scale of herbaceous plant neighborhoods (dm) using 454 sequencing of the chloroplast trn L (UAA) intron to determine the plant species richness of environmental root samples and combined it with aboveground data from vegetation surveys to obtain total plant species richness. We correlated the measured plant species richness components with each other and with their respective plant biomass components within and across vegetation types. Total plant species richness exceeded aboveground richness twice on average and by as much as three times in low alpine tundra, indicating that a significant fraction of belowground plant richness cannot be recorded aboveground. More importantly, no consistent relationship among richness components (above‐ and belowground) was found within or across vegetation types, indicating that aboveground richness alone cannot predict total plant richness in contrasting vegetation types. Finally, no consistent relationship between plant richness and the corresponding biomass component was found. Our results clearly show that aboveground plant richness alone is a poor estimator of total plant species richness within and across ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Tundra Wiley Online Library Ecology 100 2 |
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Wiley Online Library |
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English |
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Abstract Most studies consider aboveground plant species richness as a representative biodiversity measure. This approach inevitably assumes that the partitioning of total plant species richness into above‐ and belowground components is constant or at least consistent within and across vegetation types. However, with studies considering belowground plant richness still scarce and completely absent along vegetation gradients, this assumption lacks experimental support. Novel DNA sequencing techniques allow economical, high‐throughput species identification of belowground environmental samples, enabling the measurement of the contributions of both above‐ and belowground plant components to total plant richness. We investigated above‐ and belowground plant species richness in four vegetation types (birch forest, heath, low alpine tundra, high alpine tundra) at the scale of herbaceous plant neighborhoods (dm) using 454 sequencing of the chloroplast trn L (UAA) intron to determine the plant species richness of environmental root samples and combined it with aboveground data from vegetation surveys to obtain total plant species richness. We correlated the measured plant species richness components with each other and with their respective plant biomass components within and across vegetation types. Total plant species richness exceeded aboveground richness twice on average and by as much as three times in low alpine tundra, indicating that a significant fraction of belowground plant richness cannot be recorded aboveground. More importantly, no consistent relationship among richness components (above‐ and belowground) was found within or across vegetation types, indicating that aboveground richness alone cannot predict total plant richness in contrasting vegetation types. Finally, no consistent relationship between plant richness and the corresponding biomass component was found. Our results clearly show that aboveground plant richness alone is a poor estimator of total plant species richness within and across ... |
author2 |
Sihtasutus Archimedes University of Regina Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Haridus- ja Teadusministeerium |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Träger, Sabrina Öpik, Maarja Vasar, Martti Wilson, Scott D. |
spellingShingle |
Träger, Sabrina Öpik, Maarja Vasar, Martti Wilson, Scott D. Belowground plant parts are crucial for comprehensively estimating total plant richness in herbaceous and woody habitats |
author_facet |
Träger, Sabrina Öpik, Maarja Vasar, Martti Wilson, Scott D. |
author_sort |
Träger, Sabrina |
title |
Belowground plant parts are crucial for comprehensively estimating total plant richness in herbaceous and woody habitats |
title_short |
Belowground plant parts are crucial for comprehensively estimating total plant richness in herbaceous and woody habitats |
title_full |
Belowground plant parts are crucial for comprehensively estimating total plant richness in herbaceous and woody habitats |
title_fullStr |
Belowground plant parts are crucial for comprehensively estimating total plant richness in herbaceous and woody habitats |
title_full_unstemmed |
Belowground plant parts are crucial for comprehensively estimating total plant richness in herbaceous and woody habitats |
title_sort |
belowground plant parts are crucial for comprehensively estimating total plant richness in herbaceous and woody habitats |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2575 https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fecy.2575 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ecy.2575 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ecy.2575 https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ecy.2575 |
genre |
Tundra |
genre_facet |
Tundra |
op_source |
Ecology volume 100, issue 2 ISSN 0012-9658 1939-9170 |
op_rights |
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2575 |
container_title |
Ecology |
container_volume |
100 |
container_issue |
2 |
_version_ |
1810484033291812864 |