Aims Probabilistic models of species co-occurrences predict aggre-gated intraspecific spatial distributions that might decrease the degree of joint species occurrences and increase community rich-ness.Yet,little is kn...Aims Probabilistic models of species co-occurrences predict aggre-gated intraspecific spatial distributions that might decrease the degree of joint species occurrences and increase community rich-ness.Yet,little is known about the influence of intraspecific aggre-gation on the co-occurrence of species in natural,species-rich communities.Here,we focus on early plant succession and ask how changes in intraspecific aggregation of colonizing plant spe-cies influence the pattern of species co-existence,richness and turnover.Methods We studied the early vegetation succession in a six ha constructed catchment within the abandoned part of a lignite mine in NE Germany.At two spatial scales(1-and 25-m2 plots),we compared for each pair of species the intraspecific degree of aggregation and the pattern of co-occurrence and compared observed rela-tionships with temporal changes in important species functional traits.Important Findings The majority of species occurred in an aggregated manner,particu-larly in the first 2 years of succession.In pairwise comparisons,we found an excess of segregated species occurrences leading to a posi-tive link between intraspecific aggregation and pairwise species seg-regation as predicted by the aggregation hypothesis,particularly at the lower spatial resolution.The degree of intraspecific aggregation was negatively correlated with the community-wide level of species spatial turnover and with plot species richness.Our results are the first direct confirmation that increasing intraspecific aggregation and interspecific competitive interactions counteract in shaping plant community structure during succession.The respective effects of aggregation were strongest at intermediate states of early succession.展开更多
基金This study was part of the TransRegio Collaborative Research Centre 38(SFB/TR 38:ecosystem assembly and succes-sion),which was financially supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft(DFG,Bonn)and the Brandenburg Ministry of Science,Research and Culture(MWFK,Potsdam)The authors thank the working group Z1(monitoring)mem-bers of the SFB/TR 38,who helped us to perform this study and the Vattenfall Europe Mining AG for providing the re-search site.W.U.acknowledges funding from the Polish National Science Centre(2014/13/B/NZ8/04681)Hazel Pearson kindly improved the language.Conflict of interest statement.None declared.
文摘Aims Probabilistic models of species co-occurrences predict aggre-gated intraspecific spatial distributions that might decrease the degree of joint species occurrences and increase community rich-ness.Yet,little is known about the influence of intraspecific aggre-gation on the co-occurrence of species in natural,species-rich communities.Here,we focus on early plant succession and ask how changes in intraspecific aggregation of colonizing plant spe-cies influence the pattern of species co-existence,richness and turnover.Methods We studied the early vegetation succession in a six ha constructed catchment within the abandoned part of a lignite mine in NE Germany.At two spatial scales(1-and 25-m2 plots),we compared for each pair of species the intraspecific degree of aggregation and the pattern of co-occurrence and compared observed rela-tionships with temporal changes in important species functional traits.Important Findings The majority of species occurred in an aggregated manner,particu-larly in the first 2 years of succession.In pairwise comparisons,we found an excess of segregated species occurrences leading to a posi-tive link between intraspecific aggregation and pairwise species seg-regation as predicted by the aggregation hypothesis,particularly at the lower spatial resolution.The degree of intraspecific aggregation was negatively correlated with the community-wide level of species spatial turnover and with plot species richness.Our results are the first direct confirmation that increasing intraspecific aggregation and interspecific competitive interactions counteract in shaping plant community structure during succession.The respective effects of aggregation were strongest at intermediate states of early succession.
