Feedback Between Ecological Interaction and Spatial Pattern in a Transitional Michigan Forest

Self-organized Pattern Formation;Janzen-Connell Effect;Forest Ecology;Dispersal Limitation;Ecology and Evolutionary Biology;Science;Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Allen, David NicolettiKing, Aaron Alan ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Self-organized Pattern Formation;    Janzen-Connell Effect;    Forest Ecology;    Dispersal Limitation;    Ecology and Evolutionary Biology;    Science;    Ecology and Evolutionary Biology;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/91581/dnallen_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

Ecology has traditionally thought of spatial patterns in one of two ways: (1) as aconsequence of some underlying environmental heterogeneity and (2) as something toignore in models to make them more tractable. But both of these views have changed,and in the last 20 years ecologists have increasingly considered the joint feedbackthat spatial pattern and ecological interactions can have on each other. Going inone direction the spatial pattern of organisms can greatly affect how their ecologicalinteractions play out, and in the other direction local-scale ecological interactions cangive rise to emergent, self-organized spatial patterns of organisms. This dissertationexamines both directions of this feedback in the context of a mid-successional Michiganforest. The three dominant species in the understory of the forest exhibit strongnonrandom spatial patterning. Here we suggest that this spatial pattern emergesfrom biotic interactions -- the combined effect of local dispersal and Janzen-Connell,density-dependent seed and seedling mortality of two of these three species -- actingon an initial distribution of trees determined by the fire history of the area. That isecological interactions give rise to spatial pattern, but this can only be understoodin light of the history of the forest. We also suggest that this spatial pattern willaffect how the succession of the forest; if the species were completely well-mixed thesuccession of the forest would take place differently. So we show that the spatialarrangement of organisms affects ecological processes.