東華大學圖書館 |

Environmental Heterogeneity Effects on Plant Community Structure, Ecosystem Functioning, and Resilience to Global Change Drivers in Restored Prairie /

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Environmental Heterogeneity Effects on Plant Community Structure, Ecosystem Functioning, and Resilience to Global Change Drivers in Restored Prairie // Ashley Angelica Bowman.
Author:	Bowman, Ashley Angelica,
Description:	1 electronic resource (128 pages)
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 86-12, Section: B.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International86-12B.
Subject:	Ecology. -
Online resource:	https://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=32041160
ISBN:	9798280777910

Environmental Heterogeneity Effects on Plant Community Structure, Ecosystem Functioning, and Resilience to Global Change Drivers in Restored Prairie /
Bowman, Ashley Angelica,

Environmental Heterogeneity Effects on Plant Community Structure, Ecosystem Functioning, and Resilience to Global Change Drivers in Restored Prairie /Ashley Angelica Bowman. - 1 electronic resource (128 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 86-12, Section: B.

Ecological restoration aims to steer recovery of ecosystems degraded by human activity to attain components and functions representative of a reference ecosystem, including enhancing native biodiversity, reinstating ecosystem services and reestablishing resilience to periodic stress or disturbance. The tallgrass prairie is a prime ecosystem for restoration as the majority of its original expanse in North America has been converted to row-crop agriculture, which degrades and homogenizes soil. Understanding factors influencing restored prairie plant community structure and functioning is needed to achieve these conservation goals, and ecological theory should serve to guide restoration. The purpose of my dissertation research was to elucidate the effect of experimentally imposed soil heterogeneity, nutrient enrichment, and drought on prairie plant community structure, ecosystem functioning, and resilience to inform the practice and predict functioning of restored prairie. My dissertation research was conducted in a long-term prairie restoration experiment established in 1997 with varying levels of soil nutrient availability and soil depth located at the Konza Prairie Biological Station in Manhattan, KS. Enhancing resilience in reconstructed ecosystems is an important goal of ecological restoration. However, evidence for the recovery of resilience and its underlying mechanisms require long-term study and comparison to reference ecosystems. The objectives of my first research study were to (1) quantify the recovery of ecosystem functioning (i.e., productivity) relative to remnant prairie, (2) compare resilience of restored and remnant prairies to a natural drought, and (3) test whether soil heterogeneity enhances resilience of restored prairie (Chapter 2). I utilized data from the experimental prairie restoration that featured long-term soil heterogeneity manipulations and data from two long-term experiments in remnant (reference) prairie to compare ecosystem sensitivity to and recovery from (legacy effects) drought between prairie types (remnant and restored). I also compared sensitivity and legacy effects among four prairie sites that included two remnant prairie sites and prairie restored under homogeneous and heterogeneous soil conditions. I measured sensitivity and legacy effects as the proportional change in aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) during and following drought, respectively, relative to average ANPP based on four pre-drought years. In non-drought years, total ANPP was similar between remnant and restored prairie, but remnant prairie had higher grass productivity and lower forb productivity compared to restored prairie. These ANPP patterns generally persisted during drought. The sensitivity of total ANPP to drought was similar between restored and remnant prairie, but grasses in restored prairie were more sensitive to drought. Post-drought legacy effects were more positive in restored prairie, and I attributed this to the more positive and less variable legacy response of forb ANPP in restored prairie, especially in the heterogeneous soil treatment. These results suggest that productivity of restored prairie recovers to levels representative of native prairie and exhibits similar sensitivity to drought as remnant prairie. Furthermore, creating heterogeneity promotes forb productivity and enhances prairie resilience to drought. Environmental heterogeneity is a mechanism used to explain the ubiquitous species-area relationships observed in ecological studies. Numerous studies have shown that the number of species observed increases as sampling spatial scale increases. This pattern is often attributed to increasing spatial complexity, whether explicitly measured or implied, and this spatial complexity is considered a stabilizing mechanism promoting coexistence. However, studies that assess species richness responses to manipulated environmental heterogeneity rarely report results at multiple spatial scales to assess the robustness of the diversity-heterogeneity relationships or explore underlying community composition. My second dissertation research objective was to test if soil heterogeneity (soil depth, nutrients, both) and sampling scale affect plant community structure and composition (Chapter 3). To achieve this objective, I quantified plant species composition in a multi-decadal restoration experiment with four heterogeneity treatments (three levels of soil nitrogen, two levels of rooting depth, a factorial combination of nitrogen and depth, and no manipulations). Diversity was highest in plots containing the maximum heterogeneity (3 nutrient x 2 soil depth) and nutrient heterogeneity treatments (3 levels of nutrients) compared to the homogeneous control across all scales. Richness was higher in the maximum heterogeneity treatment compared to the soil depth heterogeneity treatment (containing only two levels of soil depth) and control plots (no manipulations) across all scales. Evenness was higher with any manipulation of heterogeneity compared to the control across all scales. Diversity and richness increased but evenness decreased with sampling scale across all heterogeneity treatments. Community dissimilarity within plots was highest in maximum heterogeneity compared to soil depth heterogeneity and control across quadrat and subplot scales. Heterogeneity treatments created compositionally distinct plant communities over all sampling scales. My results demonstrate the robust positive effect that environmental heterogeneity has across scales on restored plant diversity and composition.Nutrient availability and drought affect grassland productivity and community dynamics, but less is known about how these global change drivers influence restored ecosystems. The third objective of my dissertation was to evaluate the interactive effects of precipitation (ambient or reduced) and nitrogen (reduced, ambient or enriched N) on productivity, community diversity metrics, and species composition by leveraging a long-term grassland restoration that manipulated nutrient availability coupled with a multi-year drought imposed via rainout shelters (Chapter 4). I predicted drought would dampen differences among nutrient availability treatments in all metrics. I estimated aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) by harvesting plants at peak plant biomass and visually estimated cover of each species in permanent quadrats to measure community composition and calculate diversity, richness, and evenness. I used mixed models to test the main and interactive effects of nutrient and precipitation treatments on productivity and community metrics along with multivariate analyses to test compositional differences among communities. Drought dampened differences in total and grass ANPP among nutrient treatments due to lower ANPP in the enriched-N under rain-out shelters compared to ambient precipitation. In contrast to my hypothesis, drought created differences in forb ANPP among the nutrient treatments, with communities in the low N treatment having greater forb ANPP than enriched N communities under the rainout shelters. Plant diversity metrics were unaffected by nutrient and precipitation treatments. The composition of unfertilized plant communities was sensitive to drought as exemplified by an increase in forb (often leguminous) cover under drought compared to ambient conditions, whereas the productivity of N-enriched communities was sensitive to drought. These results provide important insights into how restored prairie structure and functioning could respond to drier conditions across varying levels of soil fertility.

English

ISBN: 9798280777910Subjects--Topical Terms:

516476
Ecology.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Ecological restoration

Environmental Heterogeneity Effects on Plant Community Structure, Ecosystem Functioning, and Resilience to Global Change Drivers in Restored Prairie /
LDR:09237nmm a22004453i 4500 001 2435539
005 20251009101017.5
006 m o d
007 cr|nu||||||||
008 261011s2025 miu||||||m |||||||eng d
020 $a 9798280777910
035 $a (MiAaPQD)AAI32041160
035 $a AAI32041160
040 $a MiAaPQD $b eng $c MiAaPQD $e rda
100 1 $a Bowman, Ashley Angelica, $e author. $0 (orcid)0009-0001-1625-6508 $3 3825863
245 1 0 $a Environmental Heterogeneity Effects on Plant Community Structure, Ecosystem Functioning, and Resilience to Global Change Drivers in Restored Prairie / $c Ashley Angelica Bowman.
264 1 $a Ann Arbor : $b ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, $c 2025
300 $a 1 electronic resource (128 pages)
336 $a text $b txt $2 rdacontent
337 $a computer $b c $2 rdamedia
338 $a online resource $b cr $2 rdacarrier
500 $a Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 86-12, Section: B.
500 $a Advisors: Baer, Sara G. Committee members: Bever, James D.; Foster, Bryan L.; Kindscher, Kelly; Blair, John M.
502 $b Ph.D. $c University of Kansas $d 2025.
520 $a Ecological restoration aims to steer recovery of ecosystems degraded by human activity to attain components and functions representative of a reference ecosystem, including enhancing native biodiversity, reinstating ecosystem services and reestablishing resilience to periodic stress or disturbance. The tallgrass prairie is a prime ecosystem for restoration as the majority of its original expanse in North America has been converted to row-crop agriculture, which degrades and homogenizes soil. Understanding factors influencing restored prairie plant community structure and functioning is needed to achieve these conservation goals, and ecological theory should serve to guide restoration. The purpose of my dissertation research was to elucidate the effect of experimentally imposed soil heterogeneity, nutrient enrichment, and drought on prairie plant community structure, ecosystem functioning, and resilience to inform the practice and predict functioning of restored prairie. My dissertation research was conducted in a long-term prairie restoration experiment established in 1997 with varying levels of soil nutrient availability and soil depth located at the Konza Prairie Biological Station in Manhattan, KS. Enhancing resilience in reconstructed ecosystems is an important goal of ecological restoration. However, evidence for the recovery of resilience and its underlying mechanisms require long-term study and comparison to reference ecosystems. The objectives of my first research study were to (1) quantify the recovery of ecosystem functioning (i.e., productivity) relative to remnant prairie, (2) compare resilience of restored and remnant prairies to a natural drought, and (3) test whether soil heterogeneity enhances resilience of restored prairie (Chapter 2). I utilized data from the experimental prairie restoration that featured long-term soil heterogeneity manipulations and data from two long-term experiments in remnant (reference) prairie to compare ecosystem sensitivity to and recovery from (legacy effects) drought between prairie types (remnant and restored). I also compared sensitivity and legacy effects among four prairie sites that included two remnant prairie sites and prairie restored under homogeneous and heterogeneous soil conditions. I measured sensitivity and legacy effects as the proportional change in aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) during and following drought, respectively, relative to average ANPP based on four pre-drought years. In non-drought years, total ANPP was similar between remnant and restored prairie, but remnant prairie had higher grass productivity and lower forb productivity compared to restored prairie. These ANPP patterns generally persisted during drought. The sensitivity of total ANPP to drought was similar between restored and remnant prairie, but grasses in restored prairie were more sensitive to drought. Post-drought legacy effects were more positive in restored prairie, and I attributed this to the more positive and less variable legacy response of forb ANPP in restored prairie, especially in the heterogeneous soil treatment. These results suggest that productivity of restored prairie recovers to levels representative of native prairie and exhibits similar sensitivity to drought as remnant prairie. Furthermore, creating heterogeneity promotes forb productivity and enhances prairie resilience to drought. Environmental heterogeneity is a mechanism used to explain the ubiquitous species-area relationships observed in ecological studies. Numerous studies have shown that the number of species observed increases as sampling spatial scale increases. This pattern is often attributed to increasing spatial complexity, whether explicitly measured or implied, and this spatial complexity is considered a stabilizing mechanism promoting coexistence. However, studies that assess species richness responses to manipulated environmental heterogeneity rarely report results at multiple spatial scales to assess the robustness of the diversity-heterogeneity relationships or explore underlying community composition. My second dissertation research objective was to test if soil heterogeneity (soil depth, nutrients, both) and sampling scale affect plant community structure and composition (Chapter 3). To achieve this objective, I quantified plant species composition in a multi-decadal restoration experiment with four heterogeneity treatments (three levels of soil nitrogen, two levels of rooting depth, a factorial combination of nitrogen and depth, and no manipulations). Diversity was highest in plots containing the maximum heterogeneity (3 nutrient x 2 soil depth) and nutrient heterogeneity treatments (3 levels of nutrients) compared to the homogeneous control across all scales. Richness was higher in the maximum heterogeneity treatment compared to the soil depth heterogeneity treatment (containing only two levels of soil depth) and control plots (no manipulations) across all scales. Evenness was higher with any manipulation of heterogeneity compared to the control across all scales. Diversity and richness increased but evenness decreased with sampling scale across all heterogeneity treatments. Community dissimilarity within plots was highest in maximum heterogeneity compared to soil depth heterogeneity and control across quadrat and subplot scales. Heterogeneity treatments created compositionally distinct plant communities over all sampling scales. My results demonstrate the robust positive effect that environmental heterogeneity has across scales on restored plant diversity and composition.Nutrient availability and drought affect grassland productivity and community dynamics, but less is known about how these global change drivers influence restored ecosystems. The third objective of my dissertation was to evaluate the interactive effects of precipitation (ambient or reduced) and nitrogen (reduced, ambient or enriched N) on productivity, community diversity metrics, and species composition by leveraging a long-term grassland restoration that manipulated nutrient availability coupled with a multi-year drought imposed via rainout shelters (Chapter 4). I predicted drought would dampen differences among nutrient availability treatments in all metrics. I estimated aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) by harvesting plants at peak plant biomass and visually estimated cover of each species in permanent quadrats to measure community composition and calculate diversity, richness, and evenness. I used mixed models to test the main and interactive effects of nutrient and precipitation treatments on productivity and community metrics along with multivariate analyses to test compositional differences among communities. Drought dampened differences in total and grass ANPP among nutrient treatments due to lower ANPP in the enriched-N under rain-out shelters compared to ambient precipitation. In contrast to my hypothesis, drought created differences in forb ANPP among the nutrient treatments, with communities in the low N treatment having greater forb ANPP than enriched N communities under the rainout shelters. Plant diversity metrics were unaffected by nutrient and precipitation treatments. The composition of unfertilized plant communities was sensitive to drought as exemplified by an increase in forb (often leguminous) cover under drought compared to ambient conditions, whereas the productivity of N-enriched communities was sensitive to drought. These results provide important insights into how restored prairie structure and functioning could respond to drier conditions across varying levels of soil fertility.
546 $a English
590 $a School code: 0099
650 4 $a Ecology. $3 516476
650 4 $a Plant sciences. $3 3173832
650 4 $a Environmental science. $3 677245
650 4 $a Conservation biology. $3 535736
650 4 $a Climate change. $2 bicssc $3 2079509
653 $a Ecological restoration
653 $a Plant community structure
653 $a Global change
653 $a Environmental heterogeneity
690 $a 0329
690 $a 0404
690 $a 0768
690 $a 0479
690 $a 0408
710 2 $a University of Kansas. $b Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. $e degree granting institution. $3 3765719
720 1 $a Baer, Sara G. $e degree supervisor.
773 0 $t Dissertations Abstracts International $g 86-12B.
790 $a 0099
791 $a Ph.D.
792 $a 2025
856 4 0 $u https://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=32041160