RT Journal Article
T1 Can environmental constraints determine random patterns of plant species co-occurrence?
A1 García Baquero, Gonzalo
A1 Crujeiras Casais, Rosa María
K1 Assembly processes
K1 Distance-based Redundancy analysis
K1 Logistic regression
K1 Null model analysis
K1 Simulation
K1 Species co-occurrence
AB Plant community ecologists use the null model approach to infer assembly processesfrom observed patterns of species co-occurrence. In about a third of publishedstudies, the null hypothesis of random assembly cannot be rejected.When this occurs, plant ecologists interpret that the observed random patternis not environmentally constrained – but probably generated by stochastic processes.The null model approach (using the C-score and the discrepancy index)was used to test for random assembly under two simulation algorithms. Logisticregression, distance-based redundancy analysis, and constrained ordination wereused to test for environmental determinism (species segregation along environmentalgradients or turnover and species aggregation). This article introducesan environmentally determined community of alpine hydrophytes that presentsitself as randomly assembled. The pathway through which the random patternarises in this community is suggested to be as follows: Two simultaneous environmental processes, one leading to species aggregation and the other leadingto species segregation, concurrently generate the observed pattern, which resultsto be neither aggregated nor segregated – but random. A simulation study supportsthis suggestion. Although apparently simple, the null model approach seems to assume that a single ecological factor prevails or that if several factorsdecisively influence the community, then they all exert their influence in thesame direction, generating either aggregation or segregation. As these assumptions are unlikely to hold in most cases and assembly processes cannot beinferred from random patterns, we would like to propose plant ecologists toinvestigate specifically the ecological processes responsible for observed randompatterns, instead of trying to infer processes from patterns
PB John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
SN E-ISSN 2045-7758
YR 2015
FD 2015-02-13
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/13956
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/13956
LA eng
NO García-Baquero, G., Crujeiras, R.M. (2015). Can environmental constraints determine random patterns of plant species co-occurrence?. "Ecology and Evolution", 5(5), 1088-1099 [doi: 10.1002/ece3.1349]
NO This research and publication was possiblethanks to a postdoctoral fellowship at TheOpen University (UK) and the project “Development of the recovery plan for A.rioxana in la Rioja. Measures of research,monitoring and control (University ofSalamanca)”, both funded by the RegionalGovernment of La Rioja (Spain)
DS Minerva
RD 24 abr 2026