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COLONIZATION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF MISSOURI PRAIRIE PLANTS ON ARTIFICIAL SOIL DISTURBANCES. III. SPECIES ABUNDANCE DISTRIBUTIONS, SURVIVORSHIP, AND RARITY
Author(s) -
Rabinowitz Deborah,
Rapp Jody K.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
american journal of botany
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.218
H-Index - 151
eISSN - 1537-2197
pISSN - 0002-9122
DOI - 10.1002/j.1537-2197.1985.tb08428.x
Subject(s) - biology , survivorship curve , abundance (ecology) , dominance (genetics) , ecology , taxon , species richness , common species , population , rare species , habitat , demography , cancer , biochemistry , genetics , sociology , gene
We examined the process by which a pool of colonists was reduced to a pool of survivors in 160 small microsites on undisturbed tall‐grass prairie in Missouri. Specifically, did the degree of species dominance shift as mortality proceeded and did rare and common species differ in their survivorship? Over 4 yr, 25 taxa of seedlings appeared and 12 survived until the end of the experiment; these pools contained 550 and 79 identified individuals, respectively. For vegetative shoots, 36 taxa appeared and 20 survived, with 1,750 and 387 identified individuals, respectively. Mean survivorship for seedlings (119 ± 87 days) was briefer than for shoots (165 ± 107 days). While species richness was lower among survivors than colonizers, it was not lower than one would expect based on random mortality. Rare species were not disproportionately lost given their population sizes in the microsites. Taxa that were common in the source pool remained common as survivors. The survivors showed more equitable species abundance distributions than the colonists, due to higher mortality among a few of the more common species. For the entire pool of colonists, there was no relationship between abundance and survivorship. In general, rare species did not have higher mortality than common species. These results do not support the notion of regeneration as a competitive “sorting out” of successful dominant from unsuccessful rarer species. Rather, they portray waves of turnover of tiny plants, with species largely acting independently of one another.