Using plant functional distances to select species for restoration of mining sites

1. Plant facilitation, an ecological interaction that benefits at least one species without harming the other, is increasingly used as a restoration tool. To restore degraded habitats under a facilitation framework, practitioners must correctly select both the benefactor (nurse) and the beneficiary (facilitated) species. 2. Based on community assembly and species coexistence theory, we propose selecting plant species that largely differ in a suite of functional traits so that competition is minimized and facilitation maximized due to functional complementarity. To apply this guideline in a pilot restoration experiment performed in metalliferous mine tailings in South-Eastern Spain, we first built the plant-plant facilitative interaction network naturally occurring in a set of 12 tailings. After characterizing each species with 20 morphological and physiological traits, we verified that facilitative interactions were predominantly established between functionally distant species. 3. Then...

1. 植物促进作用（Plant facilitation）是一种至少使一个物种获益且不会伤害另一物种的生态交互过程，目前正日益被用作生境修复工具。若要基于促进作用框架修复退化生境，修复实践者需准确选取施助物种（即护护士植物）与受助物种（即被促进物种）。
2. 基于群落装配（community assembly）与物种共存（species coexistence）理论，我们提出应选取在一系列功能性状（functional traits）上存在显著差异的植物物种，借助功能互补性（functional complementarity）实现种间竞争最小化与促进作用最大化。为将该准则应用于西班牙东南部金属矿尾矿（metalliferous mine tailings）场地开展的试点修复实验，我们首先构建了12座尾矿场中自然存在的种间植物促进交互网络。在通过20项形态与生理性状对各物种完成性状表征后，我们证实促进交互作用主要发生在功能性状差异显著的物种之间。
3. 随后……