Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T00:20:36.546Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Testing dominance-diversity hypotheses using data from abandoned plantations and pastures in Puerto Rico and Ecuador

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2010

Randall W. Myster
Randall W. Myster*
Affiliation:
Biology Department, Oklahoma State University, 900 N. Portland Ave, Oklahoma City, OK 73107, USA
*
1Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Ecosystems have long been categorized by their function and structure (Odum 1953) and dominance and diversity are among the most common structural parameters measured in plant communities. The dominance of a plant species over another has been defined by having (1) more individual plants in a given sampling plot, (2) more collective biomass, or (3) greater cover (i.e. leaf area), but implicit in all definitions is a better ability to capture resources, grow and compete. Alternatively, diversity is a community-wide parameter encompassing both the raw number of species and the distribution of individual plants among them. Combining dominance and diversity together gives curves that show the distribution of abundances within a community (Whittaker 1965, Wilson 1991) and explore how these two aspects of structure relate to each other, change over time, and compare between communities separated in time or space. These curves are also effective in displaying contrasting patterns of species richness, highlighting differences in evenness among assemblages, and comparing species abundance patterns across communities (Magurran 2004). Indeed combining the dominance of particular species and the relative importance of that species within a community can suggest a ranking in competitive success and niche differentiation.

Keywords

bananacoffeeLTERold fieldsSetaria sphacelatasugarcane
Type
Short Communication
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , March 2010 , pp. 247 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

LITERATURE CITED

AIDE, T. M., ZIMMERMAN, J. K., ROSARIO, M. & MARCANO, H. 1996. Forest recovery in abandoned cattle pastures along an elevational gradient in Northeastern Puerto Rico. Biotropica 28:537–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BAZZAZ, F. A. 1975. Plant species diversity in old-field successional ecosystems in southern Illinois. Ecology 56:485–488.Google Scholar
HOLDRIDGE, L. R. 1967. Life zone ecology. Tropical Science Center. San Jose, 216 pp.Google Scholar
KEELEY, J. E. & FOTHERINGHAM, C. J. 2003. Species-area relationships in Mediterranean-climate plant communities. Journal of Biogeography 30:1629–1657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LIOGIER, A. H. & MARTORELL, L. F. 1982. Flora of Puerto Rico and adjacent islands: a systematic synopsis. Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. 370 pp.Google Scholar
MAGURRAN, A. E. 2004. Measuring biological diversity. Blackwell Science Ltd, Oxford. 252 pp.Google Scholar
MAGURRAN, A. E. 2005. Species abundance distributions: pattern or process? Functional Ecology 19:177–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MYSTER, R. W. 1993. Tree invasion and establishment in old fields at Hutcheson Memorial Forest. The Botanical Review 59:251–272.Google Scholar
MYSTER, R. W. 2003. Vegetation dynamics of a permanent pasture plot in Puerto Rico. Biotropica 35:422–428.Google Scholar
MYSTER, R. W. 2007a. Early successional pattern and process after sugarcane, banana and pasture in Ecuador. New Zealand Journal of Botany 46:101–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MYSTER, R. W. 2007b. Introduction. Pp. 3–21 in Myster, R. W. (ed.). Post-agricultural succession in the Neotropics. Springer-Verlag, New York.Google Scholar
MYSTER, R. W. 2007c. Interactive effects of flooded and forest gap formation on tree composition and abundance in the Peruvian Amazon. Folia Geobotanica 42:1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MYSTER, R. W. & MALAHY, M. P. 2008. Is there a middle-way between permanent plots and chronosequences? Canadian Journal of Forest Research 38:3133–3138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ODUM, E. P. 1953. Fundamentals of ecology. Saunders, Philadelphia. 384 pp.Google Scholar
SUGIHARA, G. 1980. Minimal community structure: an explanation of species abundance patterns. American Naturalist 116:770–787.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
TOKESHI, M. 1993. Species abundance patterns and community structure. Advances in Ecological Research 24:111–186.Google Scholar
UPADHAYA, K., PANDEY, H. N., LAW, P. S. & TRIPATHI, R. S. 2003. Tree diversity in sacred groves of the Jaintia hills in Meghalaya, northeast India. Biodiversity and Conservation 12:583–597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WHITTAKER, R. H. 1965. Dominance and diversity in land plant communities. Science 147:250–260.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
WILSON, J. B. 1991. Methods for fitting dominance-diversity curves. Journal of Vegetation Science 2:35–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ZAHAWI, R. A. & AUGSPURGER, C. K. 1999. Early plant succession in abandoned pastures in Ecuador. Biotropica 31:123–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar