
Open access
Date
2019Type
- Review Article
Citations
Cited 17 times in
Web of Science
Cited 22 times in
Scopus
ETH Bibliography
yes
Altmetrics
Abstract
Background: Plant communities are usually characterised by species composition and abundance, but also underlie a multitude of complex interactions that we have only recently started unveiling. Yet, we are still far from understanding ecological and evolutionary processes shaping the network-level organisation of plant diversity, and to what extent these processes are specific to certain spatial scales or environments.
Aims: Understanding the systemic mechanisms of plant–plant network assembly and their consequences for diversity patterns.
Methods: We review recent methods and results of plant–plant networks.
Results: We synthetize how plant–plant networks can help us to: (a) assess how competition and facilitation may balance each other through the network; (b) analyse the role of plant–plant interactions beyond pairwise competition in structuring plant communities, and (c) forecast the ecological implications of complex species dependencies. We discuss pros and cons, assumptions and limitations of different approaches used for inferring plant–plant networks.
Conclusions: We propose novel opportunities for advancing plant ecology by using ecological networks that encompass different ecological levels and spatio-temporal scales, and incorporate more biological information. Embracing networks of interactions among plants can shed new light on mechanisms driving evolution and ecosystem functioning, helping us to mitigate diversity loss. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000347429Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Plant Ecology and DiversityVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
Taylor & FrancisSubject
Biodiversity; Commensalism; Competition; Ecological Networks; Facilitation; interaction chains; Parasitism; Plant communityOrganisational unit
02350 - Dep. Umweltsystemwissenschaften / Dep. of Environmental Systems Science03970 - De Moraes, Consuelo / De Moraes, Consuelo
Funding
180195 - The impact of land-use change and species invasion on biodiversity and ecological networks (SNF)
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Show all metadata
Citations
Cited 17 times in
Web of Science
Cited 22 times in
Scopus
ETH Bibliography
yes
Altmetrics