Plant community response to interacting disturbances - a case study of molehils and flooding in species-rich meadows

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Katja Tielbörger
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems
• Term: from 2004 to 2010
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5435220

Disturbances are crucial for determining structure and diversity of natural plant communities. Despite the multitude of ecological studies on disturbances, there is still a need for a general inclusive paradigm. Here, we 1) investigate differences and interactions between small-scale and large-scale disturbances; 2) search for key life history traits determining a species' response to disturbance; 3) explicitly study species interactions under disturbance; and 4) test for the usefulness of a plant f al type approach in scaling up from single species response to disturbance to a community level. Our approach is a combination of an extensive empirical setup with a computer-based simulation model of vegetation dynamics. We use speciesrich wet meadows as case study, where winter floods act as regular, large-scale disturbances and molehills as irregular, small-scale disturbances. While moles constitute a very frequent disturbance agent in Central Europe, their role in structuring plant communities and faci litating coexistence has not been studied in detail. Our results will greatly increase our understanding about how a plant's life history interacts with different disturbance types, and how disturbances affect interactions among plants. Therefore, this study addresses important obstacles to a generalized theory about the links between disturbance and plant species coexistence.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants