Simulating Plant Community Dynamics

Processes of plant communities - Competition - Facilitation - Mutualism - Resilience

Simulating Plant Community Dynamics

Temporal Components - Climax Communities - Stable States - Dynamic Equilibrium

D’Odorico et al. Global desertification: Drivers and feedbacks..

www.nature.comPlatt W.J. 1994.

Simulating Plant Community Dynamics

Spatial Components - Environmental filters - Local interactions - Distributions - Biodiversity

http://www.saguaro-juniper.com/i_and_i/san_pedro/ecoregions/plant_distribution.html

Konza LTER

http://aknhp.uaa.alaska.edu/botany/rare-plant-species-information/

Simulating Plant Community Dynamics

Experimental Design - Rarely includes spatial data - Small scale plots - Sessile organisms – long timescale

University of Houston: mobile ecosystems

Cedar Creek, MN. LTER.

Simulating Plant Community Dynamics

Simulated Data - Test hypotheses - Suggest future experiments

Two Methods Discussed - Cellular Automata -Point process model simulation

Parrott. 2004

Silvertown. 1996.

Colosanti & Hunt. 2004..

Levin. 1997..

Common Model Frameworks - Probabilistic - Mechanistic - Phenomenological

Simulating Plant Community Dynamics

Cellular Automata

Simulating Plant Community Dynamics

Cellular Automata: GAMA - Four main sections

The Ruderal functional group (green) can be thought of as simulating the performance of annual species.

Competitors (blue) and Stress tolerators (red) can be thought of as simulating perennial species.

Typically, annuals are outcompeted by perennials.

However, at a certain level of fecundity (~200 offspring), annual are able to coexist.

Simulating Plant Community Dynamics

Cellular Automata - Simulated dynamics - Numerous scenarios - Simple rule-based simulations

Simulating Plant Community Dynamics

Point process model simulation - spatstat package in R - Point patterns - Create, refine, plot - Correlations and Marks - Point process models - Poisson models - Random patterns & spatial trends

spatstat generated random patterns.

Field data.

Field data.

Simulating Plant Community Dynamics

Density and Intensity Analysis - Spatial analysis of densities (intensity) - Fit point patterns to models - Analyze performance

Smoothed residuals plot.

Relative density by plant type.

3D Density plots.

Envelope plot

3D density plot.

References