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Components of spatial patterning in a serpentine grassland
Author(s) -
OVERTON JACOB McC.,
LEVIN SIMON A.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
ecological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.628
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1440-1703
pISSN - 0912-3814
DOI - 10.1046/j.1440-1703.2003.00565.x
Subject(s) - abundance (ecology) , grassland , quadrat , forb , spatial ecology , spatial variability , ecology , range (aeronautics) , disturbance (geology) , biology , relative species abundance , semivariance , spatial distribution , environmental science , shrub , geography , paleontology , statistics , materials science , remote sensing , mathematics , composite material
We analyzed the components of spatial patterning in species abundance in a diverse grassland dominated by early season, annual forbs. Species abundance, soil depth and gopher disturbances were measured by means of a nested spatial design on two 8 m × 20 m plots that differed in the amount of larger scale variability in soil depth. Species distributions at the scale of the 10 cm × 10 cm quadrat were highly clumped, with a decline in clumping with mean abundance. Even with the effect of abundance on clumping removed, species showed differences in the degree of clumping and these differences were consistent between the two plots. The abundance of the species and the frequency of disturbance correlated weakly to moderately with soil depth. Semivariance analyses indicated that the most common species all showed complex spatial patterning at a range of scales. Some of this variation corresponded to patterns of soil depth variation and patterns of gopher disturbance; however, a large amount of the spatial patterning in species abundance remains unexplained.