RecruitNet: A global database of plant recruitment networks.

Plant recruitment interactions (i.e., what recruits under what) shape the composition, diversity, and structure of plant communities.

Warming reverses directionality in the richness-abundance relationship in ephemeral Mediterranean plant communities.

Recent findings in forests worldwide have demonstrated how directionality in the richness-abundance causality shifts along global climate gradients: The so-called more-species hypothesis (richness determines abundance) prevails in Earth's most productive climates, whereas the opposite, the so-called more-individuals hypothesis (abundance determines richness), is more likely to prevail in climatically harsh conditions. Since temporal variability is the norm, a critical question is whether this directionality shift is also a function of temporal climatic fluctuations locally. Here, we analyze whether directionality in the richness-abundance relationship is contingent on temporal variability over 10 annual consecutive realizations in ephemeral plant assemblages.

Recent and ancient evolutionary events shaped plant elemental composition of edaphic endemics: a phylogeny-wide analysis of Iberian gypsum plants.

The analysis of plant elemental composition and the underlying factors affecting its variation are a current hot topic in ecology. Ecological adaptation to atypical soils may shift plant elemental composition. However, no previous studies have evaluated its relevance against other factors such as phylogeny, climate or individual soil conditions.

Diverse phylogenetic neighborhoods enhance community resistance to drought in experimental assemblages.

Although the role played by phylogeny in the assembly of plant communities remains as a priority to complete the theory of species coexistence, experimental evidence is lacking. It is still unclear to what extent phylogenetic diversity is a driver or a consequence of species assembly processes. We experimentally explored how phylogenetic diversity can drive the community level responses to drought conditions in annual plant communities.

Effect of aridity on species assembly in gypsum drylands: a response mediated by the soil affinity of species.

Previous studies found that plant communities on infertile soils are relatively resistant to climatic variation due to stress tolerance adaptations. However, the species assemblies in gypsum soil habitats require further investigation. Thus, we considered the following questions.

Alpine vegetation dataset from three contrasting mountain ranges differing in climate and evolutionary history.

Vegetation above treeline constitutes one of the most vulnerable ecosystems to climate warming and other drivers of Global Change. Given the panorama of such an uncertain future facing these plant communities, it is critical to know how they respond to environmental changes and improve the knowledge on the potential impacts of climate change on their distribution. Recently, with the impressive development of trait-based approaches, relevant progress has been made to better understand the relationships between environmental conditions and plant communities.

Impacts of climate, soil and biotic interactions on the interplay of the different facets of alpine plant diversity.

Disentangling the processes that drive plant community assembly is critical for understanding the patterns of plant diversity. We studied how different abiotic and biotic factors shape the interplay between the facets of alpine plant diversity, functional (FD), phylogenetic (PD) and taxonomic diversity (TD), in three different mountain ranges with contrasting evolutionary histories and climate conditions (Pyrenees and Mediterranean-type mountains in central Spain and Chilean Andes). We hypothesized that the causal links vary in strength and sign across regions.

Winter is coming: plant freezing resistance as a key functional trait for the assembly of annual Mediterranean communities.

Background And Aims: In Mediterranean annual plants, germination mainly occurs during the autumn and only those seedlings that survive winter freezing can flower and produce seedlings in spring. Surprisingly, the effect of freezing events as an abiotic determinant of these communities remains unexplored. The present study aimed to investigate how freezing events affect annual Mediterranean communities and whether their functional structure as related to freezing resistance is linked to the main biotic and abiotic determinants of these communities.

Factors driving species assemblage in Mediterranean soil seed banks: from the large to the fine scale.

Background And Aims: Many studies have analysed the mechanisms that determine plant coexistence in standing vegetation, but the determinants of soil seed bank species assemblies have rarely been studied. In gypsum soil communities, aerial vegetation and seed banks are tightly connected in space and time, but the mechanisms involved in their organization may differ. The aim of this study is to understand the relative importance of biotic and abiotic factors controlling soil seed bank composition and structure.

Plant life on gypsum: a review of its multiple facets.

The adaptation of plants to particular soil types has long intrigued biologists. Gypsum soils occupy large areas in many regions of the world and host a striking biological diversity, but their vegetation has been much less studied than that developing over serpentine or saline soils. Herein, we review all aspects of plant life on gypsum ecosystems, discuss the main processes driving their structure and functioning, and highlight the main conservation threats that they face.

Assemblage of a semi-arid annual plant community: abiotic and biotic filters act hierarchically.

The study of species coexistence and community assembly has been a hot topic in ecology for decades. Disentangling the hierarchical role of abiotic and biotic filters is crucial to understand community assembly processes. The most critical environmental factor in semi-arid environments is known to be water availability, and perennials are usually described as nurses that create milder local conditions and expand the niche range of several species.

Shrub encroachment can reverse desertification in semi-arid Mediterranean grasslands.

The worldwide phenomenon of shrub encroachment in grass-dominated dryland ecosystems is commonly associated with desertification. Studies of the purported desertification effects associated with shrub encroachment are often restricted to relatively few study areas, and document a narrow range of possible impacts upon biota and ecosystem processes. We conducted a study in degraded Mediterranean grasslands dominated by Stipa tenacissima to simultaneously evaluate the effects of shrub encroachment on the structure and composition of multiple biotic community components, and on various indicators of ecosystem function.

Environmental scales on the reproduction of a gypsophyte: a hierarchical approach.

Background And Aims: Environmental variability at several scales can determine plant reproductive success. The main goal of this work was to model the reproductive flexibility of a semi-arid specialist considering different scales of environmental variability.

Methods: A 2-year field study was performed on the determinants of the female reproductive success of Helianthemum squamatum, an Iberian gypsophyte, considering two scales of environmental variability: differences between two contrasting slope aspects; and, on individual scale, the neighbouring microenvironment.