We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Multi-driver and multi-scale assessment of vine community structure and composition across a complex tropical environmental matrix.
- Authors
Delgado, Diana L.; Restrepo, Carla
- Abstract
Ecological communities are structured by multiple processes operating at multiple scales yet understanding the scale-dependency of these processes remains an open challenge. This might be particularly true for parasites, for which biotic rather than abiotic processes may play a primary role in structuring communities. Focusing on vines, a group of structural parasites that gain access to the canopy using different climbing mechanisms, we examined the influence of abiotic factors in tandem with host-parasite and parasite-parasite interactions in the assembly of tropical vine communities. Two synthetic variables, namely Climate1 and landscape Variety, were consistently important in explaining variation in species richness and diversity, as well as species composition, but their importance varied with scale. Whereas Climate1 summarizes the largest variability among climatic variables, landscape Variety expresses landscape heterogeneity within a neighborhood. Significant patterns of species co-occurrences suggest that vine-vine interactions also contribute to vine community assembly. Our results may be critical to understand vine proliferation and help design management strategies for their control.
- Subjects
BIOTIC communities; COMMUNITY organization; SPECIES diversity; CLIMBING plants; PLANT canopies; DESIGN management
- Publication
PLoS ONE, 2019, Vol 14, Issue 5, p1
- ISSN
1932-6203
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0215274