Coupling ordination techniques and GAM to spatially predict vegetation assemblages along a climatic gradient in an ENSO-affected region of extremely high climate variability

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Jannes Muenchow
  • Hannes Feilhauer
  • Achim Bräuning
  • Fabian Bayer
  • Eric Frank Rodríguez
  • Rodolfo Arisméndiz Rodríguez
  • H. von Wehrden
Questions: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a strong driver of climatic and ecosystem variability in coastal NW Peru. La Niña amplifies the already dry local conditions, and led to depleted ecosystems in 2011. However, the 2012 La Niña event triggered rainfall far above the average. (1) Did plant species diversity, primary productivity and vegetation assemblages change along a climatic gradient between two climatologically different La Niña years; (2) Is there a difference in explanatory power of environmental predictors between the 2 yr; and (iii) is it possible to predict the observed vegetation patterns spatially? Location: Transect along a climatic gradient in the Sechura Desert of Piura, NW Peru (corresponds to the terrestrial part of the El Niño region 1 + 2) - a region of extremely high climatic variability. Methods: We visited 50 30 m × 30 m randomly sampled plots in 2011 and 2012. A Procrustes analysis of two non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) ordinations provided information on the temporal change of species assemblages. Variation partitioning revealed the differences in explanatory power of the predictors. We employed a generalized additive model (GAM) to fit the scores of the first ordination axis with a floristic gradient map as a result. Results: Generally, higher rainfall resulted in a positive feedback when considering biodiversity, productivity and vegetation assemblages. The floristic gradient map resulting from the GAM displayed the spatial distribution of the three main assemblages along the climatic gradient. Edaphic variables added no independent portion to the explanation of the vegetation assemblages, but explained in conjunction with topography and NDVI a considerable amount of the variance. Conclusions: Strong Atlantic easterly winds crossing the Andes can boost plant growth even during a La Niña situation. This underscores the need for a deeper understanding of ENSO-related climate variability of ENSO. Combining vegetation maps with accurate predictions of such climatic anomalies would aid the effective execution of conservation and recovery strategies. Additionally, coupling an unconstrained ordination with a GAM appears to be a promising tool for vegetation mapping, especially in the presence of a non-linear gradient.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Vegetation Science
Volume24
Issue number6
Pages (from-to)1154-1166
Number of pages13
ISSN1100-9233
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.11.2013

    Research areas

  • Biology - Edaphic gradient, Multivariate statistics, Precipitation gradient, Species distribution, Tropical dry forest, Vegetation unit distribution
  • Ecosystems Research

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. A dissociation between two classes of spatial abilities in elementary school children
  2. A Note on Pensions and Firm Performance
  3. Three schools of transformation thinking
  4. Precision Denoising in Medical Imaging via Generative Adversarial Network-Aided Low-Noise Discriminator Technique
  5. Do abundance distributions and species aggregation correctly predict macroecological biodiversity patterns in tropical forests?
  6. How many organic compounds are graph-theoretically nonplanar?
  7. Identifying determinants of teachers' judgment (in)accuracy regarding students' school-related motivations using a Bayesian cross-classified multi-level model
  8. Use of Recurrence Quantification Analysis to Examine Associations Between Changes in Text Structure Across an Expressive Writing Intervention and Reductions in Distress Symptoms in Women With Breast Cancer
  9. Design rules for environmental biodegradability of phenylalanine alkyl ester linked ionic liquids
  10. Effects of samarium content on microstructure and mechanical properties of Mg–0.5Zn–0.5Zr alloy
  11. Noninteracting force/motion control of defective manipulation systems
  12. Robust Control as a Mathematical Paradigm for Innovative Engineering Applications
  13. A classification of teacher interventions in mathematics teaching
  14. TextCSN
  15. Cascaded Kalman Filters for a Sliding Mode Control in a Peltier Structure for an Innovative Manufacturing System
  16. Revisiting Carbon Disclosure and Performance
  17. Epistemic Domination by Data Extraction
  18. Assessing the costs and cost-effectiveness of ICare internet-based interventions (protocol)
  19. A hysteresis hybrid extended kalman filter as an observer for sensorless valve control in camless internal combustion engines
  20. On entrepreneurial risk-taking and the macroeconomic effects of financial constraints
  21. John Howard Yoder
  22. The use of intellectual capital as a competitive tool
  23. Reliability, factor structure, and measurement invariance of the dominic interactive across European countries
  24. Exploring the Capacity of Water Framework Directive Indices to Assess Ecosystem Services in Fluvial and Riparian Systems
  25. Likelihood-based panel cointegration test in the presence of a linear time trend and cross-sectional dependence
  26. Authority and Authorship
  27. Linking the multi-level perspective with social representations theory
  28. “From Within Fur and Feathers”
  29. From GUI to No-UI
  30. Reconnecting with nature for sustainability