Journal ArticleDOI
Global shifts towards positive species interactions with increasing environmental stress
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TLDR
A synthesis of 727 tests of the stress-gradient hypothesis in plant communities across the globe shows that plant interactions change with stress through an outright shift to facilitation (survival) or a reduction in competition (growth and reproduction).Abstract:
The study of positive species interactions is a rapidly evolving field in ecology. Despite decades of research, controversy has emerged as to whether positive and negative interactions predictably shift with increasing environmental stress as hypothesised by the stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH). Here, we provide a synthesis of 727 tests of the SGH in plant communities across the globe to examine its generality across a variety of ecological factors. Our results show that plant interactions change with stress through an outright shift to facilitation (survival) or a reduction in competition (growth and reproduction). In a limited number of cases, plant interactions do not respond to stress, but they never shift towards competition with stress. These findings are consistent across stress types, plant growth forms, life histories, origins (invasive vs. native), climates, ecosystems and methodologies, though the magnitude of the shifts towards facilitation with stress is dependent on these factors. We suggest that future studies should employ standardised definitions and protocols to test the SGH, take a multi-factorial approach that considers variables such as plant traits in addition to stress, and apply the SGH to better understand how species and communities will respond to environmental change.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Improving intercropping: a synthesis of research in agronomy, plant physiology and ecology.
Rob W. Brooker,Alison E. Bennett,Wen-Feng Cong,Tim J. Daniell,Timothy S. George,Paul D. Hallett,Paul D. Hallett,Cathy Hawes,Pietro P. M. Iannetta,Hamlyn G. Jones,Hamlyn G. Jones,Alison J. Karley,Long Li,Blair M. McKenzie,Robin J. Pakeman,Eric Paterson,Christian Schöb,Jianbo Shen,Geoff R. Squire,Christine A. Watson,Chaochun Zhang,Fusuo Zhang,Junling Zhang,Philip J. White +23 more
TL;DR: It is suggested that other topics also need addressing, including better assessment of the wider benefits of intercropping in terms of multiple ecosystem services, collaboration with agricultural engineering, and more effective interdisciplinary research.
Journal ArticleDOI
The spatial and temporal dynamics of species interactions in mixed-species forests: From pattern to process
TL;DR: This review examines how spatial and temporal differences in resource availability or climatic conditions can influence these interactions between species and how these interactions influence the growth of mixtures.
Journal ArticleDOI
A Review of Processes Behind Diversity—Productivity Relationships in Forests
David I. Forrester,Jürgen Bauhus +1 more
TL;DR: This review indicates that while the effects of tree-species diversity on growth and other forest functions are now receiving a lot of attention, far less is known about the effects on growth or forest functioning and direct measurements of the processes could greatly contribute to the understanding of structural diversity effects.
Journal ArticleDOI
Uses and misuses of meta‐analysis in plant ecology
TL;DR: The quality of published meta-analyses in plant ecology was uneven and showed little improvement over time, and adoption of a checklist of quality criteria for meta-analysis for use by research synthesists, peer reviewers and journal editors is suggested.
Journal ArticleDOI
Facilitation as a ubiquitous driver of biodiversity
TL;DR: It is shown that net positive effects have a long history of being considered ecologically or evolutionarily unstable, and recent evidence of its potential stability is presented, and it is presented that these increases are ubiquitous across ecosystems.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Competitive response hierarchies for germination, growth, and survival and their influence on abundance
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used a field and a garden experiment in southeastern Michigan to generate competitive response hierarchies among 4-8 old-field perennials for five components of fitness.
Journal ArticleDOI
What does the stress‐gradient hypothesis predict? Resolving the discrepancies
Dan Malkinson,Katja Tielbörger +1 more
TL;DR: A synthesis of the concepts of population biology and plant physiology with the stress gradient hypothesis while retaining the original simplicity of the SGH model contributes to a better specification of the predictions of the stress-gradient hypothesis and the resolution of observed contradictions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Testing the facilitation–competition paradigm under the stress-gradient hypothesis: decoupling multiple stress factors
Takashi Kawai,Mutsunori Tokeshi +1 more
TL;DR: The present study emphasizes the importance of an integrative and mechanistic approach to testing and deciphering the facilitation–competition paradigm, and conceptualized possible variations in the patterns of change in interaction strength along a full range of a stress gradient.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate-driven interactions among rocky intertidal organisms caught between a rock and a hot place.
TL;DR: Predicting even simple community responses to climate change may be more complex than is currently appreciated, like recent laboratory microcosm studies, suggest.
Journal ArticleDOI
Plant functional group responses to fire frequency and tree canopy cover gradients in oak savannas and woodlands
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors measured plant functional group cover and tree canopy cover on permanent plots within a long-term prescribed fire frequency experiment and used hierarchical linear modeling to assess plant functional groups responses to fire frequency and tree coverage.
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