I explored species association using survey plot data in Tibetan Plateau, the highest plateau in world, where very unique herbaceous communities occurred. However, I found the number of associated pairs of species fluctuated based on a four-year interval data. Could I assume that the slow-growth community remain stable or equilibrium so that their association keeps stable too?
Pair-wise associations-disassociations are not easy to interpret. They vary a lot and are sensitive to many factors. They can be a result of plant interactions (facilitation or competition), or because habitable sites are same for different species and they have to live together despite competition. In a very harsh conditions plant may lack neighbors just because other plants cannot colonize the same spot. Plant interactions can also depend on phenology and age. If our have a novel pattern observed, (e.g., associated pairs re-emerge regularly every four or so years, first you need document it well and then analyze all possible factors that can influence plant spatial distributions.
thanks for the answer. I found your work on alpine cusion plant very enlightenning, I would like to follow you in ResearchGate.
Bonjour,
I do not know the tests you used (associated pairs) but for the High Arctic, I liked the paper of Svoboda and Henry 1987 about succession.
I concluded that that polar desert plant communities may be in a state of colonisation-retrogression. The pool of species found was similar but 2 were found here, 4 there, only 1 at another site.
Here some older ref. I hope it can help.
All the best,
Esther.
Svoboda, J., and G.H.R. Henry. 1987. Succession in marginal arctic environments. Arctic and Alpine Research 19:373-384.
Lévesque, E. 2001. Small scale plant distribution within a polar desert plateau, central Ellesmere Island, Canada. Ecoscience 8 (3): 350-358.
Lévesque, E. and J. Svoboda, 1999. Re-establishment of vascular plants in the polar "lichen-kill" landscapes due to Little Ice Age impact. Polar research 18: 221-228.
Lévesque, E. 1997. Plant distribution and colonization in extreme polar deserts, Ellesmere Island, Canada. PhD Thesis, Dept. of Botany, University of Toronto. 331p.
here is the second thought: are there reliable indices to present the stability of plant communities? I know there are debates/contradicts between biodiversity and stability in earlier period of time, however, stability index can be very useful when monitoring the temporal change of plant community. thanks for tips
This is a very interesting question… I am not aware of any stability measure, but I know that monitoring of stability is based on the permanent plots. Then floristic similarity index (Bray-Curtis or Morisita-Horn) can be used to analyze whether there is any trend of change in the community structure (species composition and abundance distribution), or fluctuations revolve around to certain state. Your finding of 4-years of repeated pair-wise associations hints that there are cycles which can be considered a kind of stability. This reminds me one model proposed back in early 1990s, which can be relevant in your case – the carousel model of plant communities, which also analyzes stability (along with disturbance and diversity):
Maarel, E., & Sykes, M. T. (1993). Small‐scale plant species turnover in a limestone grassland: the carousel model and some comments on the niche concept. Journal of Vegetation Science, 4(2), 179-188.
Pärtel, M., Zobel, M., Zobel, K., & van der Maarel, E. (1996). The species pool and its relation to species richness: evidence from Estonian plant communities. Oikos, 111-117.
van der Maarel, E. (1993). Some remarks on disturbance and its relations to diversity and stability. Journal of Vegetation Science, 733-736.
thanks for the quick feedback, I will start from a simple model first. although there are some papers in recent ecology letters in this regard, ideas from early papers is much easy to understand in this case.
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