Plant communities, populations and individuals have distinct responses to short-term warming and neighbour biomass removal in two montane grasslands

Aims Climate change will impact plant communities and populations but also individual plant performance. Most predictive models of community responses to climate change ignore individual‐level biotic interactions despite their known importance for community diversity and functioning. Here, we consider plant fitness and diversity responses to climate change associated factors at three organisational levels: communities, populations and individual plants, to increase our understanding of how plant communities respond to climate change. Location Montane grassland, Tasmania, Australia. Methods In two plant communities, we manipulated temperature using open‐top chambers and removed random and dominant species biomass. Two years after experimental manipulations, we assessed the impact of treatments on species diversity, community‐ and population‐level functional traits and individual plant fitness. Results Species diversity was affected by warming in one of ...研究主旨 气候变化不仅会对植物群落、种群产生影响，亦会作用于植株个体的生长表现。当前多数用于预测气候变化下植物群落响应的模型，均忽略了个体水平的生物相互作用——尽管这类相互作用对群落多样性与生态系统功能的重要性已得到证实。本研究从群落、种群与植株个体三个组织层次出发，探究植物适合度（plant fitness）与多样性对气候变化相关因子的响应，以期加深对植物群落如何响应气候变化的认知。 研究地点 澳大利亚塔斯马尼亚州山地草原。 研究方法 本研究在两个植物群落中，采用开顶式生长室（open-top chambers）调控温度，并移除随机选取物种与优势物种的生物量。实验处理实施两年后，我们评估了各处理对物种多样性、群落与种群水平功能性状（functional traits），以及植株个体适合度的影响。 研究结果 物种多样性在其中一个（群落/样地）中受到增温的影响……