Abstract
Species-level dispersal information can give mechanistic insights into how spatial processes impact plant communities. Unfortunately, field-based estimates of the dispersal abilities of multiple members of a community are often lacking for many plant systems. Here, we provide a simple method for measuring dispersal ability for large numbers of grassland plant species based on functional traits. Using this method, we estimated the dispersal ability of 50 co-occurring grassland species using the Wald Analytical Long-distance Dispersal (WALD) model. Grassland plants species are often used for developing community theory, yet species-level estimates of their dispersal abilities are comparatively rare. We use these dispersal measurements to examine the relationship between species dispersal abilities and successional dynamics using data from a 90-yr old field chronosequence. We find that our estimated dispersal measurements matched field-based establishment observations well, and estimated species colonization, competitive, and establishment abilities. We hope that this method for measuring dispersal ability of multiple species within a community, and its demonstrated ability to generate predictions for spatial ecology, will encourage more studies of the explicit role of dispersal in plant community ecology.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 2415-2420 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Ecology |
Volume | 99 |
Issue number | 11 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018 by the Ecological Society of America
Keywords
- WALD model
- colonization
- competition
- dispersal
- establishment
- propagule pressure
- seed traits
- spatial ecology
- succession
- terminal velocity