Nitrogen niches revealed through species and functional group removal in a boreal shrub community
Most theories attempting to explain the coexistence of species in local communities make fundamental assumptions regarding whether neighbors exhibit competitive, neutral, or positive resource–use interactions; however, few long-term data from naturally assembled plant communities exist to test these...
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ftdatacite:10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3304821.v1 2023-05-15T17:45:13+02:00 Nitrogen niches revealed through species and functional group removal in a boreal shrub community Gundale, Michael J. Hyodo, Fujio Marie-Charlotte Nilsson Wardle, David A. 2016 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3304821.v1 https://figshare.com/collections/Nitrogen_niches_revealed_through_species_and_functional_group_removal_in_a_boreal_shrub_community/3304821/1 unknown Figshare https://dx.doi.org/10.1890/11-1877.1 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3304821 CC-BY http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us CC-BY Environmental Science Ecology FOS Biological sciences Collection article 2016 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3304821.v1 https://doi.org/10.1890/11-1877.1 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3304821 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z Most theories attempting to explain the coexistence of species in local communities make fundamental assumptions regarding whether neighbors exhibit competitive, neutral, or positive resource–use interactions; however, few long-term data from naturally assembled plant communities exist to test these assumptions. We utilized a 13-year experiment consisting of factorial removal of three shrub species ( Vaccinium myrtillus , V. vitis-idaea , and Empetrum hermaphroditum ) and factorial removal of two functional groups (tree roots and feather mosses) to assess how neighbors affect N acquisition and growth of each of the three shrub species. The removal plots were established on each of 30 lake islands in northern Sweden that form a natural gradient of resource availability. We tested the hypotheses that: (1) the presence of functionally similar neighbors would reduce shrub N acquisition through competition for a shared N resource; (2) the removal of functional groups would affect shrub N acquisition by altering the breadth of their niches; and (3) soil fertility would influence the effects of neighbor removals. We found that the removal of functionally similar neighbors (i.e., other shrub species) usually resulted in higher biomass and biomass N, with the strength of these effects varying strongly with site fertility. Shrub species removals never resulted in altered stable N isotope ratios (δ 15 N), suggesting that the niche breadth of the three shrubs was unaffected by the presence of neighboring shrub species. In the functional group removal experiment, we found positive effects of feather moss removal on V. myrtillus biomass and biomass N, and negative effects on E. hermaphrotium N concentration and V. vitis-idaea biomass and biomass N. Tree root removal also caused a significant shift in foliar δ 15 N of V. myrtillus and altered the δ 15 N, biomass, and biomass N of E. hermaphroditum . Collectively, these results show that the resource acquisition and niche breadth of the three shrub species are often affected by neighbors, and further that both the identity of neighbors and site fertility strongly determine whether these interactions are positive, negative, or neutral. These findings have implications for understanding species coexistence and the reciprocal relationships between productivity and species diversity in this ecosystem. Article in Journal/Newspaper Northern Sweden DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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Open Polar |
collection |
DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
op_collection_id |
ftdatacite |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Environmental Science Ecology FOS Biological sciences |
spellingShingle |
Environmental Science Ecology FOS Biological sciences Gundale, Michael J. Hyodo, Fujio Marie-Charlotte Nilsson Wardle, David A. Nitrogen niches revealed through species and functional group removal in a boreal shrub community |
topic_facet |
Environmental Science Ecology FOS Biological sciences |
description |
Most theories attempting to explain the coexistence of species in local communities make fundamental assumptions regarding whether neighbors exhibit competitive, neutral, or positive resource–use interactions; however, few long-term data from naturally assembled plant communities exist to test these assumptions. We utilized a 13-year experiment consisting of factorial removal of three shrub species ( Vaccinium myrtillus , V. vitis-idaea , and Empetrum hermaphroditum ) and factorial removal of two functional groups (tree roots and feather mosses) to assess how neighbors affect N acquisition and growth of each of the three shrub species. The removal plots were established on each of 30 lake islands in northern Sweden that form a natural gradient of resource availability. We tested the hypotheses that: (1) the presence of functionally similar neighbors would reduce shrub N acquisition through competition for a shared N resource; (2) the removal of functional groups would affect shrub N acquisition by altering the breadth of their niches; and (3) soil fertility would influence the effects of neighbor removals. We found that the removal of functionally similar neighbors (i.e., other shrub species) usually resulted in higher biomass and biomass N, with the strength of these effects varying strongly with site fertility. Shrub species removals never resulted in altered stable N isotope ratios (δ 15 N), suggesting that the niche breadth of the three shrubs was unaffected by the presence of neighboring shrub species. In the functional group removal experiment, we found positive effects of feather moss removal on V. myrtillus biomass and biomass N, and negative effects on E. hermaphrotium N concentration and V. vitis-idaea biomass and biomass N. Tree root removal also caused a significant shift in foliar δ 15 N of V. myrtillus and altered the δ 15 N, biomass, and biomass N of E. hermaphroditum . Collectively, these results show that the resource acquisition and niche breadth of the three shrub species are often affected by neighbors, and further that both the identity of neighbors and site fertility strongly determine whether these interactions are positive, negative, or neutral. These findings have implications for understanding species coexistence and the reciprocal relationships between productivity and species diversity in this ecosystem. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Gundale, Michael J. Hyodo, Fujio Marie-Charlotte Nilsson Wardle, David A. |
author_facet |
Gundale, Michael J. Hyodo, Fujio Marie-Charlotte Nilsson Wardle, David A. |
author_sort |
Gundale, Michael J. |
title |
Nitrogen niches revealed through species and functional group removal in a boreal shrub community |
title_short |
Nitrogen niches revealed through species and functional group removal in a boreal shrub community |
title_full |
Nitrogen niches revealed through species and functional group removal in a boreal shrub community |
title_fullStr |
Nitrogen niches revealed through species and functional group removal in a boreal shrub community |
title_full_unstemmed |
Nitrogen niches revealed through species and functional group removal in a boreal shrub community |
title_sort |
nitrogen niches revealed through species and functional group removal in a boreal shrub community |
publisher |
Figshare |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3304821.v1 https://figshare.com/collections/Nitrogen_niches_revealed_through_species_and_functional_group_removal_in_a_boreal_shrub_community/3304821/1 |
genre |
Northern Sweden |
genre_facet |
Northern Sweden |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1890/11-1877.1 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3304821 |
op_rights |
CC-BY http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3304821.v1 https://doi.org/10.1890/11-1877.1 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3304821 |
_version_ |
1766148065187594240 |