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Predicting species establishment using absent species and functional neighborhoods.

ABSTRACT: Species establishment within a community depends on their interactions with the local environment and resident community. Such environmental and biotic filtering is frequently inferred from functional trait and phylogenetic patterns within communities; these patterns may also predict which additional species can establish. However, differentiating between environmental and biotic filtering can be challenging, which may complicate establishment predictions. Creating a habitat-specific species pool by identifying which absent species within the region can establish in the focal habitat allows us to isolate biotic filtering by modeling dissimilarity between the observed and biotically excluded species able to pass environmental filters. Similarly, modeling the dissimilarity between the habitat-specific species pool and the environmentally excluded species within the region can isolate local environmental filters. Combined, these models identify potentially successful phenotypes and why certain phenotypes were unsuccessful. Here, we present a framework that uses the functional dissimilarity among these groups in logistic models to predict establishment of additional species. This approach can use multivariate trait distances and phylogenetic information, but is most powerful when using individual traits and their interactions. It also requires an appropriate distance-based dissimilarity measure, yet the two most commonly used indices, nearest neighbor (one species) and mean pairwise (all species) distances, may inaccurately predict establishment. By iteratively increasing the number of species used to measure dissimilarity, a functional neighborhood can be chosen that maximizes the detection of underlying trait patterns. We tested this framework using two seed addition experiments in calcareous grasslands. Although the functional neighborhood size that best fits the community's trait structure depended on the type of filtering considered, selecting these functional neighborhood sizes allowed our framework to predict up to 50% of the variation in actual establishment from seed. These results indicate that the proposed framework may be a powerful tool for studying and predicting species establishment.

SUBMITTER: Bennett JA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5383500 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Predicting species establishment using absent species and functional neighborhoods.

Bennett Jonathan A JA Pärtel Meelis M

Ecology and evolution 20170304 7

Species establishment within a community depends on their interactions with the local environment and resident community. Such environmental and biotic filtering is frequently inferred from functional trait and phylogenetic patterns within communities; these patterns may also predict which additional species can establish. However, differentiating between environmental and biotic filtering can be challenging, which may complicate establishment predictions. Creating a habitat-specific species poo ...[more]

PMID: 28405286

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Project description:Species-rich semi-natural grasslands are highly endangered habitats in Central Europe and numerous restoration efforts have been made to compensate for the losses in the last decades. However, some plant species could become more easily established than others. The establishment success of 37 species was analyzed over 6 years at two study sites of a restoration project in Germany where hay transfer and sowing of threshing material in combination with additional sowing were applied. The effects of the restoration method applied, time since the restoration took place, traits related to germination, dispersal, and reproduction, and combinations of these traits on the establishment were analyzed. While the specific restoration method of how seeds were transferred played a subordinate role, the establishment success depended in particular on traits such as flower season or the lifeform. Species flowering in autumn, such as Pastinaca sativa and Serratula tinctoria, became established better than species flowering in other seasons, probably because they could complete their life cycle, resulting in increasingly stronger seed pressure with time. Geophytes, like Allium angulosum and Galium boreale, became established very poorly, but showed an increase with study duration. For various traits, we found significant trait by method and trait by year interactions, indicating that different traits promoted establishment under different conditions. Using a multi-model approach, we tested whether traits acted in combination. For the first years and the last year, we found that models with three traits explained establishment success better than models with a single trait or two traits. While traits had only an additive effect on the establishment success in the first years, trait interactions became important thereafter. The most important trait was the season of flowering, which occurred in all best models from the third year onwards. Overall, our approach revealed the potential of functional trait analysis to predict success in restoration projects.

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Predicting species establishment using absent species and functional neighborhoods.

Publications

Predicting species establishment using absent species and functional neighborhoods.

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