@article {145418, title = {Restoration of open ecosystems in the face of climate change}, journal = {GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION}, volume = {53}, year = {2024}, month = {09/2024}, abstract = {

Open ecosystems occur all around the world in various forms including temperate and tropical grasslands, savannas, shrublands, heathlands, among others. They are home to unique biodiversity, provide key ecosystem services and sustain traditional livelihoods of nearly two billion people. In the face of ongoing climate change, practitioners aiming to restore open ecosystems need the support of the scientific community more than ever. The aim of this Special Issue (SI) is to provide an attention-grabbing collection of high-quality publications addressing the growing challenges of open ecosystems restoration. The SI contains 14 papers that fill various, often interdisciplinary knowledge gaps. Three papers deal with the challenges of identifying the right target states, including the genetic composition of constituting plant species, for restoration under changing environmental conditions and competing stakeholder interests. Five papers advance our understanding on the appropriate timing and methodological toolkit to actively ignite reassembly of the target plant communities, while two papers focus on situations where spontaneous processes can still also be relied on. The interaction of open ecosystems health and recovery with higher trophic levels, particularly grazers, is also discussed in three papers. Finally, a review paper systematically identifies further knowledge gaps, such as the role of soil microbes in grassland recovery and makes clear guidelines how to fill them. Due to the variety of topics and the rigorous content, this SI provides strong support for open ecosystems restoration policy and practice under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and beyond.

}, doi = {10.1016/j.gecco.2024.e02989}, author = {Tolgyesi, Csaba and Helm, Aveliina and Ratnam, Jayashree and Silveira, FAO and Torok, Peter} } @article {103399, title = {Opposing community assembly patterns for dominant and jonnondominant plant species in herbaceous ecosystems globally}, journal = {ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION }, year = {2021}, month = {11/02021}, abstract = {

Biotic and abiotic factors interact with dominant plants-the locally most frequent or with the largest coverage-and nondominant plants differently, partially because dominant plants modify the environment where nondominant plants grow. For instance, if dominant plants compete strongly, they will deplete most resources, forcing nondominant plants into a narrower niche space. Conversely, if dominant plants are constrained by the environment, they might not exhaust available resources but instead may ameliorate environmental stressors that usually limit nondominants. Hence, the nature of interactions among nondominant species could be modified by dominant species. Furthermore, these differences could translate into a disparity in the phylogenetic relatedness among dominants compared to the relatedness among nondominants. By estimating phylogenetic dispersion in 78 grasslands across five continents, we found that dominant species were clustered (e.g., co-dominant grasses), suggesting dominant species are likely organized by environmental filtering, and that nondominant species were either randomly assembled or overdispersed. Traits showed similar trends for those sites (\<50\%) with sufficient trait data. Furthermore, several lineages scattered in the phylogeny had more nondominant species than expected at random, suggesting that traits common in nondominants are phylogenetically conserved and have evolved multiple times. We also explored environmental drivers of the dominant/nondominant disparity. We found different assembly patterns for dominants and nondominants, consistent with asymmetries in assembly mechanisms. Among the different postulated mechanisms, our results suggest two complementary hypotheses seldom explored: (1) Nondominant species include lineages adapted to thrive in the environment generated by dominant species. (2) Even when dominant species reduce resources to nondominant ones, dominant species could have a stronger positive effect on some nondominants by ameliorating environmental stressors affecting them, than by depleting resources and increasing the environmental stress to those nondominants. These results show that the dominant/nondominant asymmetry has ecological and evolutionary consequences fundamental to understand plant communities.

}, doi = {10.1002/ece3.8266}, author = {Arnillas, Carlos Alberto and Borer, Elizabeth and Seabloom, Eric and Alberti, Juan and B{\'a}ez, Selene and Bakker, Jonathon and Boughton, Elizabeth and Buckley, Yvonne and Bugalho, Miguel Nuno and Donohue, Ian and Dwyer, John and Eskelinen, Anu and Firn, Jennifer and Gridzak, Riley and Hagenah, Nicole and Hautier, Yann and Helm, Aveliina and Jentsch, Anke and Knops, Johannes M. H. and Komatsu, Kimberly J. and Laanisto, Lauri and Laungani, Ramesh and McCulley, Rebecca and Moore, Joslin and Morgan, John and Peri, Pablo Luis and Power, Sally A. and Price, Jodi and Sankaran, Mahesh and Schamp, Brandon and Speziale, Karina and Standish, Rachel and Virtanen, Risto and Cadotte, Marc W.} } @article {105155, title = {Opposing community assembly patterns for dominant and nondominant plant species in herbaceous ecosystems globally.}, journal = {Ecol Evol}, volume = {11}, year = {2021}, month = {2021 Dec}, pages = {17744-17761}, abstract = {

Biotic and abiotic factors interact with dominant plants-the locally most frequent or with the largest coverage-and nondominant plants differently, partially because dominant plants modify the environment where nondominant plants grow. For instance, if dominant plants compete strongly, they will deplete most resources, forcing nondominant plants into a narrower niche space. Conversely, if dominant plants are constrained by the environment, they might not exhaust available resources but instead may ameliorate environmental stressors that usually limit nondominants. Hence, the nature of interactions among nondominant species could be modified by dominant species. Furthermore, these differences could translate into a disparity in the phylogenetic relatedness among dominants compared to the relatedness among nondominants. By estimating phylogenetic dispersion in 78\ grasslands across five continents, we found that dominant species were clustered (e.g., co-dominant grasses), suggesting dominant species are likely organized by environmental filtering, and that nondominant species were either randomly assembled or overdispersed. Traits showed similar trends for those sites (\<50\%) with sufficient trait data. Furthermore, several lineages scattered in the phylogeny had more nondominant species than expected at random, suggesting that traits common in nondominants are phylogenetically conserved and have evolved multiple times. We also explored environmental drivers of the dominant/nondominant disparity. We found different assembly patterns for dominants and nondominants, consistent with asymmetries in assembly mechanisms. Among the different postulated mechanisms, our results suggest two complementary hypotheses seldom explored: (1) Nondominant species include lineages adapted to thrive in the environment generated by dominant species. (2) Even when dominant species reduce resources to nondominant ones, dominant species could have a stronger positive effect on some nondominants by ameliorating environmental stressors affecting them, than by depleting resources and increasing the environmental stress to those nondominants. These results show that the dominant/nondominant asymmetry has ecological and evolutionary consequences fundamental to understand plant communities.

}, issn = {2045-7758}, doi = {10.1002/ece3.8266}, author = {Arnillas, Carlos Alberto and Borer, Elizabeth T and Seabloom, Eric W and Alberti, Juan and B{\'a}ez, Selene and Bakker, Jonathan D and Boughton, Elizabeth H and Buckley, Yvonne M and Bugalho, Miguel Nuno and Donohue, Ian and Dwyer, John and Firn, Jennifer and Gridzak, Riley and Hagenah, Nicole and Hautier, Yann and Helm, Aveliina and Jentsch, Anke and Knops, Johannes M H and Komatsu, Kimberly J and Laanisto, Lauri and Laungani, Ramesh and McCulley, Rebecca and Moore, Joslin L and Morgan, John W and Peri, Pablo Luis and Power, Sally A and Price, Jodi and Sankaran, Mahesh and Schamp, Brandon and Speziale, Karina and Standish, Rachel and Virtanen, Risto and Cadotte, Marc W} }