Dataset Information

Species interactions modulate the response of saltmarsh plants to flooding.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

The vegetation that grows on coastal wetlands is important for ecosystem functioning, a role mediated by plant traits. These traits can be affected by environmental stressors and by the competitive environment the plant experiences. The relative importance of these influences on different traits is poorly understood and, despite theoretical expectations for how factors may interact, empirical data are conflicting. Our aims are to determine the effect of flooding, species composition and their interaction on plant functional traits, and assess the role of biodiversity and species composition in driving community-level responses to flooding.

Methods

We conducted a factorial glasshouse experiment assessing the effects of species composition (all combinations of three saltmarsh species, Aster tripolium, Plantago maritima and Triglochin maritima) and flooding (immersion of roots) on a suite of functional traits. We also related biomass in mixed species pots to that expected from monocultures to assess how species interactions affect community-level biomass.

Key results

Species composition frequently interacted with flooding to influence functional traits and community-level properties. However, there was also considerable intraspecific variability in traits within each treatment. Generally, effects of flooding were more pronounced for below-ground than above-ground biomass, while composition affected above-ground biomass more than below-ground biomass. We found both negative and positive interactions between species (indicated by differences in above- and below-ground biomass from expectations under monoculture), meaning that composition was an important determinate of community function.

Conclusions

While the effect of flooding alone on traits was relatively weak, it interacted with species composition to modify the response of both individual plants and communities. Our results suggest that responses to increased flooding will be complex and depend on neighbourhood species interactions. Furthermore, intraspecific trait variability is a potential resource that may dampen the effects of changes in flooding regime.

SUBMITTER: Edge RS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7442338 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Species interactions modulate the response of saltmarsh plants to flooding.

Edge Ryan S RS Sullivan Martin J P MJP Pedley Scott M SM Mossman Hannah L HL

Annals of botany 20200201 2

<h4>Background and aims</h4>The vegetation that grows on coastal wetlands is important for ecosystem functioning, a role mediated by plant traits. These traits can be affected by environmental stressors and by the competitive environment the plant experiences. The relative importance of these influences on different traits is poorly understood and, despite theoretical expectations for how factors may interact, empirical data are conflicting. Our aims are to determine the effect of flooding, spec ...[more]

PMID: 31304956

Similar Datasets

Project description:Purpose: The State of Rio Grande do Sul is the largest producer of peaches from Brazil. However, it still has low values of productivity when compared to other States. One of the problems associated to it this is the occurrence of drainage soils problems, which can suffer flooding situations potentially hampering the development and productivity such culture. For studies to assist in the selection of flood tolerant genotypes, it is essential to understand the physiological and molecular changes of the plants in situations of oxygen deprivation. Using Illumina Hiseq2500 we performed transcriptome analysis of leaves from ‘Capdeboscq’ (Prunus persica) and ‘Julior’ (Prunus insititia x Prunus domestica) rootstocks under flooding for 48 hours. Methods: The mRNA of Prunus spp. plants cv. Capdeboscq e Julior was generated using deep sequencing, in triplicate, using Illumina Hi-Seq 2500, for the following treatments:I) control: plants received irrigation daily until field capacity; and II) plants exposed to flood stress, maintaining a water level of approximately 3 cm above the ground. The sequence reads that passed quality filters were analyzed at the transcript level using this method: Mapping using STAR and identification of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) was performed with the edgeR (false discovery rates - FDRs of <0.05). RT–qPCR validation was performed using SYBR Green assays. Results: Flooding stress causes important high transcriptional changes in the ‘Capdeboscq’ compared to 'Julior' and this is mainly due to their sensitivity/tolerance levels. ‘Capdeboscq’ had photosynthesis as the most affected physiological process at the molecular level, showing a large number of down-regulated enriched GOs, even though it activated cellular signaling pathways under flooding. 'Julior' was more efficient in defense responses, which include the activation of flavonoid biosynthesis pathways. Conclusions: The analysis of two Prunus spp. rootstocks contrasting to the level of tolerance / sensitivity provide new insights into the process of plant flood stress tolerance.

Project description:Braided river floodplains are highly dynamic ecosystems, where aquatic communities are strongly regulated by the hydrologic regime. So far, however, understanding of how flow variation influences assembly mechanisms remains limited. We collected benthic chironomids and oligochaetes over a year across a lateral connectivity gradient in the semi-natural Tagliamento River (Italy). Four bankfull flood events occurred during the study, allowing the assessment of how flooding and hydrologic connectivity mediate the balance between stochastic and deterministic community assembly. While invertebrate density and richness were positively correlated with connectivity, diversity patterns showed no significant correlation. Species turnover through time increased with decreasing connectivity. Contrary to expectations, hydrologic connectivity did not influence the response of community metrics (e.g. diversity, density) to floods. Invertebrate composition was weakly related to connectivity, but changed predictably in response to floods. Multivariate ordinations showed that faunal composition diverged across the waterbodies during stable periods, reflecting differential species sorting across the lateral gradient, but converged again after floods. Stable hydrological periods allowed communities to assemble deterministically with prevalence of non-random beta-diversity and co-occurrence patterns and larger proportion of compositional variation explained by local abiotic features. These signals of deterministic processes declined after flooding events. This occurred despite no apparent evidence of flood-induced homogenisation of habitat conditions. This study is among the first to examine the annual dynamic of aquatic assemblages across a hydrologic connectivity gradient in a natural floodplain. Results highlight how biodiversity can exhibit complex relations with hydrologic connectivity. However, appraisal of the assembly mechanisms through time indicated that flooding shifted the balance from deterministic species sorting across floodplain habitats, towards stochastic processes related to organisms redistribution and the likely resetting of assembly to earlier stages.

Dataset Information

Species interactions modulate the response of saltmarsh plants to flooding.

Background and aims

Methods

Key results

Conclusions

Publications

Species interactions modulate the response of saltmarsh plants to flooding.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets