Skip to main content
Horticulture Research Station

Quantifying Species Interactions in Experimental Native vs. Exotic Grassland Plant Communities

Authors: Forest I. Isbell (Iowa State University) , Brian J. Wilsey (Iowa State University)

  • Quantifying Species Interactions in Experimental Native vs. Exotic Grassland Plant Communities

    Horticulture Research Station

    Quantifying Species Interactions in Experimental Native vs. Exotic Grassland Plant Communities

    Authors: ,

Abstract

Native ecosystems are currently being replaced by novel, exotic-dominated ecosystems worldwide. Exotic ecosystems differ from native ecosystems in several important ways. For example, exotic ecosystems are often less diverse than native ecosystems, and often contain species without a shared evolutionary history. Previously we found that biodiversity rapidly declined in experimental exotic communities because the mechanisms that maintained diversity in experimental native communities were reduced. Further investigation is needed to explicitly quantify species interactions in native vs. exotic communities. Here we test the hypothesis that exotic species will exhibit more competition, or less facilitation, than ecologically similar native species.

Keywords: RFR A9020, Department of Ecology Evolution and Organismal Biology

How to Cite:

Isbell, F. I. & Wilsey, B. J., (2010) “Quantifying Species Interactions in Experimental Native vs. Exotic Grassland Plant Communities”, Iowa State University Research and Demonstration Farms Progress Reports 2009(1).

Downloads:
Download pdf
View PDF

281 Views

107 Downloads

Published on
2010-01-01

Peer Reviewed