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Spatial variation in seed limitation of plant species richness and population sizes in floodplain tallgrass prairie

  • Community Ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

The relative importance of seed availability versus biotic interactions that affect early life stages in limiting plant population sizes and determining composition of plant communities is a central debate in plant ecology. We conducted a seed addition experiment in restored tallgrass prairie in central Kansas to determine (1) whether addition of seed of 18 native forb species produced persistent (three growing seasons) increases in the species’ population sizes and plant species richness, (2) what properties of recipient communities best explained spatial variation in added species’ establishment, and (3) whether seed size explained interspecific patterns in establishment success. Adding seed led to persistent increases in the number of added species present and in plant species richness at one of three sites. Increased species richness at the one site where community composition was structured by seed availability largely resulted from greater densities of four species. Seed size did not predict species’ establishment success. Pre-existing plant species richness was correlated with added species’ establishment success, but the direction of the relationship (positive vs. negative) varied among sites. Living aboveground plant biomass in experimental plots in the year of seed addition was negatively correlated with the number of added species established three years later. Our results provide further evidence for large spatial variation in seed limitation of plant community composition. Surprisingly, mean light availability and heterogeneity in light, both important parameters in conceptual models of grassland plant coexistence, did not predict the response of the recipient plant community to seed addition as well as pre-existing plant species richness and living aboveground biomass.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Don Distler for coordinating our use of the Ninnescah Experimental Tract, and The Wichita Department of Parks and Recreation—especially Jim Mason—for permission to use Pawnee Prairie Park. We thank James Crisler, Margaret O’Brien, Shubha Shrestha and Machale Spencer for help in the field and lab. We are grateful to Kimberly Engber, Jean Griffith, Mary Liz Jameson-Russell, Tom Miller, Bill Vanderburgh and Art Youngman for helpful comments on early drafts of this manuscript. This is contribution number 15 of the Ninnescah Field Station.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Wichita State University, 1845 Fairmount, Wichita, KS, 67260, USA

    F. Leland Russell

  2. Department of Statistics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 340 Hardin Hall North, East Campus, Lincoln, NE, 68583, USA

    Ananya Roy

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  1. F. Leland Russell
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  2. Ananya Roy
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Correspondence to F. Leland Russell.

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Communicated by Bernhard Schmid.

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Leland Russell, F., Roy, A. Spatial variation in seed limitation of plant species richness and population sizes in floodplain tallgrass prairie. Oecologia 158, 569–578 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-008-1159-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-008-1159-y

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