title: Gap formation following climatic events in spatially structured plant communities.
abstract: Gaps play a crucial role in maintaining species diversity, yet how community structure and composition influence gap formation is still poorly understood. We apply a spatially structured community model to predict how species diversity and intraspecific aggregation shape gap patterns emerging after climatic events, based on species-specific mortality responses. In multispecies communities, average gap size and gap-size diversity increased rapidly with increasing mean mortality once a mortality threshold was exceeded, greatly promoting gap recolonization opportunity. This result was observed at all levels of species richness. Increasing interspecific difference likewise enhanced these metrics, which may promote not only diversity maintenance but also community invasibility, since more diverse niches for both local and exotic species are provided. The richness effects on gap size and gap-size diversity were positive, but only expressed when species were sufficiently different. Surprisingly, while intraspecific clumping strongly promoted gap-size diversity, it hardly influenced average gap size. Species evenness generally reduced gap metrics induced by climatic events, so the typical assumption of maximum evenness in many experiments and models may underestimate community diversity and invasibility. Overall, understanding the factors driving gap formation in spatially structured assemblages can help predict community secondary succession after climatic events.
authors.affiliation: 1] Research Group Plant and Vegetation Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp (Campus Drie Eiken), Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Wilrijk, Belgium [2] Ministry of Education's Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research, Jiangxi Normal University, Ziyang Road 99, 330022 Nanchang, China.
authors.forename: Jinbao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.affiliation: Research Group Plant and Vegetation Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp (Campus Drie Eiken), Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Wilrijk, Belgium.
authors.forename: Hans J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: De Boeck
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.
authors.forename: Zhenqing
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Research Group Plant and Vegetation Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp (Campus Drie Eiken), Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Wilrijk, Belgium.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Nijs
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D002980:Climate; D017753:Ecosystem; D010944:Plants; D013045:Species Specificity