masterThesis
A importância da especificidade nas interações entre plantas para comunidades semi-áridas
Fecha
2016-02-12Registro en:
FAGUNDES, Marina Vergara. A importância da especificidade nas interações entre plantas para comunidades semi-áridas. 2016. 66f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Ecologia) - Centro de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, 2016.
Autor
Fagundes, Marina Vergara
Resumen
Plant-plant interactions play an important role modulating plant communities. In stressful
environments, positive interactions between benefactor (nurse) and beneficiary (target) plant
species are commonly reported, but negative relations are still present. Considering that one
nurse plant can interact with multiple target species, the outcome of each interaction might vary
from negative to positive generating a range of species-specific relations that are difficult to
predict. Nurse traits might indicate their capability to deploy or improve abiotic resources,
where species with slow traits, or stress-tolerant, may keep resources available longer than
plants with fast traits, or competitors. This work aims to understand (i)How plant-plant
interaction outcomes vary with species identities combination and (ii) if nurse functional traits
can predict positive or negative interaction outcomes between nurse and target species. We
conducted a multi-species factorial experiment planting 3 targets-species below and far from the
canopy of 20 nurse-species, using 5 replicates for each treatment combination. Nurse-target
showed ubiquitous species-specific interactions for targets growth, but not for survival. Despite
that, nurse species in general had a positive effect on target survivorship. Slow-fast traits did not
drive species-specific interactions, however, canopy traits were revealed as good predictor of
interaction outcomes for at least one target species. These results suggest that not just nurse
traits have to be considered for understanding species-specific effects, but also target strategies
for resource use might be a key element to predict plant-plant interaction outcomes.