Effects of Soil Properties, Temperature and Disturbance on Diversity and Functional Composition of Plant Communities Along a Steep Elevational Gradient on Tenerife

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Amanda Ratier Backes
  • Larissa Frey
  • José Ramón Arévalo
  • Sylvia Haider

Elevational variation of vegetation has been of interest for centuries, and a prominent example for such pronounced vegetation changes can be found along the steep elevational gradient on Tenerife, Canary Islands, 200 km off the West-African cost. The 3,718-m ascent to the peak of the island volcano, Teide, offers a unique opportunity to investigate associated changes in vegetation. However, elevation is not a directly acting factor, but represents several natural environmental gradients. While the elevational variation of temperature is globally rather uniform and temperature effects on plant communities are well understood, much less is known about the region-specific elevational change of chemical soil properties and their impact on plant communities along elevational gradients. Because human interference takes place even at high-elevation areas, we considered human-induced disturbance as important third factor acting upon plant community assemblages. In our study, we compared the effects of soil properties, temperature and disturbance on species richness, functional identity and functional diversity of plant communities along the elevational gradient on Tenerife. We used pairs of study plots: directly adjacent to a road and in natural vegetation close by. In each plot, we did vegetation relevées, took soil samples, and installed temperature loggers. Additionally, we collected leaf samples to measure leaf functional traits of 80% of the recorded species. With increasing elevation, soil cation concentrations, cation exchange capacity (CEC) and pH decreased significantly, while the soil carbon to phosphorus ratio slightly peaked at mid-elevations. Temperature had the strongest effects, increasing species richness and favoring communities with fast resource acquisition. Species richness was higher at road verges, indicating the positive effect of reduced competition and artificially generated heterogeneity. However, we did not detect road effects on plant functional characteristics. Vice versa, we did not find soil effects on species richness, but increased concentrations of soil cations favored acquisitive communities. Surprisingly, we could not reveal any influence on community functional diversity. The importance of temperature aligns with findings from large-scale biogeographic studies. However, our results also emphasize that it is necessary to consider the effects of local abiotic drivers, like soil properties and disturbance, to understand variation in plant communities.

Original languageEnglish
Article number758160
JournalFrontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Volume9
Pages (from-to)1-12
Number of pages13
ISSN2296-701X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 18.11.2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2021 Ratier Backes, Frey, Arévalo and Haider.

Documents

DOI

Recently viewed

Researchers

  1. Felix Westermann

Publications

  1. Schreiben in der Sekundarstufe II
  2. Can management-sponsored non-binding remuneration votes shape the executive compensation structure?
  3. Public value performance
  4. Ownership Patterns and Enterprise Groups in German Structural Business Statistics
  5. Political discourse as mediated and public discourse
  6. Towards a Sustainable Use of Phosphorus
  7. What is the threshold for a clinically relvent effect?
  8. Organization
  9. Where do the data live?
  10. Leveraging LLMs in Scholarly Knowledge Graph Question Answering
  11. Facing Up to Third Party Liability for Space Activities
  12. Legislating for Outer Space
  13. Computer Support for Environmental Management Accounting
  14. Taking Responsibility for Others and Use of Mental Contrasting
  15. Emotional reactivity and interoceptive sensitivity
  16. Geometrical Accuracy in Two-Stage Incremental Sheet Forming with Active Medium
  17. Evaluation of revitalization policies and redevelopment strategy for residential environment in coal mining areas
  18. Logik
  19. Modeling Turning Points In Global Equity Market
  20. Practices and Policies from Spaces of Possibilities to Institutional Innovations
  21. Fallstudie
  22. Synthesis and future research directions linking tree diversity to growth, survival, and damage in a global network of tree diversity experiments
  23. Integratives Gendering in der Lehre
  24. Workforce age trends and projections
  25. What do we know about new venture investment time patterns?
  26. Living Labs for Product Circularity: Learnings from the ‘Innovation Network aiming at Sustainable Smartphones’
  27. Foundations for the Development of Simulator-based Training for Older Professional Drivers
  28. The Mushroom at the End of the World
  29. Global Governance and the Interplay of Coordination and Contestation