Environmental filtering predicts plant‐community trait distribution and diversity: Kettle holes as models of meta‐community systems

作者：Sissi Lozada‐Gobilard, Susanne Stang, Karin Pirhofer‐Walzl, Thomas Kalettka, Thilo Heinken, Boris Schröder, Jana A. Eccard, Jasmin Joshi · 发表于：Ecology and Evolution · 年份：2019 · DOI：10.1002/ece3.4883 · 被引用次数：36 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Plant and animal studies、Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies

Meta-communities of habitat islands may be essential to maintain biodiversity in anthropogenic landscapes allowing rescue effects in local habitat patches. To understand the species-assembly mechanisms and dynamics of such ecosystems, it is important to test how local plant-community diversity and composition is affected by spatial isolation and hence by dispersal limitation and local environmental conditions acting as filters for local species sorting.We used a system of 46 small wetlands (kettle holes)-natural small-scale freshwater habitats rarely considered in nature conservation policies-embedded in an intensively managed agricultural matrix in northern Germany. We compared two types of kettle holes with distinct topographies (flat-sloped, ephemeral, frequently plowed kettle holes vs. steep-sloped, more permanent ones) and determined 254 vascular plant species within these ecosystems, as well as plant functional traits and nearest neighbor distances to other kettle holes.Differences in alpha and beta diversity between steep permanent compared with ephemeral flat kettle holes were mainly explained by species sorting and niche processes and mass effect processes in ephemeral flat kettle holes. The plant-community composition as well as the community trait distribution in terms of life span, breeding system, dispersal ability, and longevity of seed banks significantly differed between the two habitat types. Flat ephemeral kettle holes held a higher percentage of non-perenni...