Reproductive output--number of flowering heads: The Diversity and Abundance of Prairie Plant Communties

This study is divided into six experiments that test the influence of many factors on the diversity and abundance of prairie plant communities. Each "community" is a 2.25 meter square plot seeded with the same amount of seeds from 59 different species of plants. The first experiment is a nitrogen-fire-water factorial. The second experiment is a nitrogen-pH factorial. The third experiment is a nitrogen gradient and the fourth experiment is a nitrogen gradient with a diversity of seeds added each year. The fifth experiment is a disturbance gradient and the last experiment has three levels of soil heterogeneity (variance from the mean) for both nitrogen and pH. See trmte86, trmte103, trmte104, trmte105, trmte106, trmte107 for plot layout.

本研究共设置六组实验，旨在探究多因素对草原植物群落多样性与物种丰度的影响。每一个“群落”为一块2.25平方米的样地，均播入来自59种不同植物的等量种子。第一组实验为氮素-火烧-水分三因素析因实验；第二组实验为氮素-pH值析因实验；第三组实验为氮素梯度实验；第四组实验为每年添加不同多样性种子的氮素梯度实验；第五组实验为干扰梯度实验；第六组实验则针对氮素与pH值设置了三个土壤异质性水平（以均值方差表征）。样地布局详见trmte86、trmte103、trmte104、trmte105、trmte106、trmte107。