Factors affecting functional diversity of grassland vegetations

Peter Schippers, Wim A. Ozinga and Rogier Pouwels

Ecological Modelling, 2022, vol. 472, issue C

Abstract: The functional diversity of local plant communities is considered to be an important driver of ecosystem resistance and resilience. Various landscape characteristics can influence local functional diversity, but their relative importance is poorly understood. We used a spatially explicit grassland model (TRANSPOP) to simulate competition between 19 functional plant strategies as defined by Grime's C-S-R framework, each with different affinities for levels of Nutrient availability (N) and Disturbance (D). First, we explore the effects of N and D levels on strategy preference. Subsequently, we studied functional diversity in patchy landscapes with various levels of heterogeneity, patch size, connectivity and environmental dynamics (with patches differing in N and D). We evaluated the relative importance of these factors in determining the functional diversity of permanent grasslands of the temperate climatic zone.

Keywords: Mass effects; Colonisation limitation; Metacommunity model; Species sorting; Dispersal; Seedbank (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:472:y:2022:i:c:s0304380022001831

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2022.110078

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