Increasing soil configurational heterogeneity promotes plant community evenness through equalizing differences in competitive ability
Increasing soil configurational heterogeneity promotes plant community evenness through equalizing differences in competitive ability
复制标题
增加土壤构型异质性通过均衡竞争能力差异促进植物群落均匀性
DOI：
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142308
复制
发表时间：
2021
影响因子：
9.8
通讯作者：
Yu Fei-Hai
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Xue Wei;Huang Lin;Yu Fei-Hai
与均质土壤相比，土壤异质性通过生态位分化促进植物物种多样性。异质土壤中斑块类型的数量（即土壤构型异质性的差异）也可能在调节植物多样性方面发挥关键作用。然而，大多数研究异质性多样性关系的实证研究只涉及两种对比类型的补丁。此外，异质性-多样性关系的形状也可能被背景土壤肥力所改变。为了测试土壤异质性和数量的补丁类型的异质土壤内的影响植物群落均匀度和其潜在的依赖背景土壤肥力，我们构建了植物群落组成的四种植物在低和高养分土壤，并操纵土壤中的异质配置组成的两种或四种类型的土壤补丁，并在一个均匀的条件下，这些土壤补丁均质化。无论是均匀度的植物群落，也没有在社区内的植物之间的竞争能力的差异是显着不同的均匀性土壤和异质性土壤之间，这表明土壤异质性整体上没有影响群落均匀度。然而，均匀度较高，植物之间的竞争能力的差异较小的异质性土壤中的4种类型的土壤斑块比异质性土壤中的2种类型的土壤斑块，也在低养分土壤比高养分土壤。这些结果表明，降低土壤肥力和增加土壤构型异质性可以通过减少群落内植物种间竞争能力的差异来促进植物群落的均匀度。
Compared to homogeneous soils, soil heterogeneity is thought to promote plant species diversity through niche differentiation. The number of patch types within the heterogeneous soil (i.e. the difference in soil configurational heterogeneity) may also play a key role in regulating plant diversity. However, most empirical studies examining heterogeneity-diversity relationships involved only two contrasting types of patches. Moreover, the shape of heterogeneity-diversity relationships may also be changed by background soil fertility. To test how soil heterogeneity and number of patch types within the heterogeneous soil influence plant community evenness and their potential dependence on background soil fertility, we constructed plant communities consisting of four plant species in low- and high-nutrient soils, and manipulated the soils in heterogeneous configurations consisting of two or four types of soil patches and in a homogeneous condition where these soil patches were homogenized. Neither evenness of the plant community nor the difference in competitive ability between plants within the community was significantly different between the homogeneous soil and the heterogeneous soils, suggesting that soil heterogeneity overall had no effect on community evenness. However, evenness was higher and the difference in competitive ability between plants was lower in the heterogeneous soils with four types of soil patches than in the heterogeneous soils with two types of soil patches and also in the low-nutrient soils than in the high-nutrient soils. These results suggest that lowering soil fertility and increasing soil configurational heterogeneity can promote plant community evenness through reducing the difference in competitive ability between plant species within the community.