Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Small rainfall changes drive substantial changes in plant coexistence

Nature volume 611, pages 507–511 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Matters Arising to this article was published on 28 August 2024

Matters Arising to this article was published on 28 August 2024

Abstract

Although precipitation patterns have long been known to shape plant distributions1, the effect of changing climate on the interactions of species and therefore community composition is far less understood2,3. Here, we explored how changes in precipitation alter competitive dynamics via direct effects on individual species, as well as by the changing strength of competitive interactions between species, using an annual grassland community in California. We grew plants under ambient and reduced precipitation in the field to parameterize a competition model4 with which we quantified the stabilizing niche and fitness differences that determine species coexistence in each rainfall regime. We show that reduced precipitation had little direct effect on species grown alone, but it qualitatively shifted predicted competitive outcomes for 10 of 15 species pairs. In addition, species pairs that were functionally more similar were less likely to experience altered outcomes, indicating that functionally diverse communities may be most threatened by changing interactions. Our results highlight how important it is to account for changes to species interactions when predicting species and community response to global change.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Effects of water treatment on the stabilizing niche and fitness differences of competing pairs.
Fig. 2: Effects of water treatment on the fecundity of species when grown without competitors.
Fig. 3: Effect of water treatment on components of the invasion growth rates of species.
Fig. 4: Effect of differences in functional traits on pairwise competition outcomes within and between water treatments.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Data are available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7083314). Data were recorded in Microsoft Excel (v.16.63.1) and analysed in R (v.4.2.0).

Code availability

Codes are available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7083314). Figures and tables were created in R (v.4.2.0).

References

  1. Schimper, A. F. W. Plant Geography upon a Physiological Basis (Clarendon Press, 1903).

  2. Alexander, J. M., Diez, J. M. & Levine, J. M. Novel competitors shape species’ responses to climate change. Nature 525, 515–518 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. HilleRisLambers, J., Harsch, M. A., Ettinger, A. K., Ford, K. R. & Theobald, E. J. How will biotic interactions influence climate change-induced range shifts? Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 1297, 112–125 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Chesson, P. Mechanisms of maintenance of species diversity. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 31, 343–366 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Loarie, S. R., Weiss, S. B., Hamilton, H., Branciforte, R. & Kraft, N. J. B. The geography of climate change: implications for conservation biogeography. Divers. Distrib. 16, 476–487 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Callaway, R. M. et al. Positive interactions among alpine plants increase with stress. Nature 417, 844–848 (2002).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Dybzinski, R. & Tilman, D. Resource use patterns predict long‐term outcomes of plant competition for nutrients and light. Am. Nat. 170, 305–318 (2007).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Hautier, Y., Niklaus, P. A. & Hector, A. Competition for light causes plant biodiversity loss after eutrophication. Science 324, 636–638 (2009).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Levine, J. M. & HilleRisLambers, J. The importance of niches for the maintenance of species diversity. Nature 461, 254–257 (2009).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Kraft, N. J. B., Godoy, O. & Levine, J. M. Plant functional traits and the multidimensional nature of species coexistence. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 797–802 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  11. Knapp, A. K. et al. Rainfall variability, carbon cycling, and plant species diversity in a mesic grassland. Science 298, 2202–2205 (2002).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Sandel, B. et al. Contrasting trait responses in plant communities to experimental and geographic variation in precipitation. New Phytol. 188, 565–575 (2010).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Esch, E. H., Ashbacher, A. C., Kopp, C. W. & Cleland, E. E. Competition reverses the response of shrub seedling mortality and growth along a soil moisture gradient. J. Ecol. 106, 2096–2108 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Alon, M. & Sternberg, M. Effects of extreme drought on primary production, species composition and species diversity of a Mediterranean annual plant community. J. Veg. Sci. 30, 1045–1061 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Chesson, P. Updates on mechanisms of maintenance of species diversity. J. Ecol. 106, 1773–1794 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Barabás, G., D’Andrea, R. & Stump, S. M. Chesson’s coexistence theory. Ecol. Monogr. 88, 277–303 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Ellner, S. P., Snyder, R. E., Adler, P. B. & Hooker, G. An expanded modern coexistence theory for empirical applications. Ecol. Lett. 22, 3–18 (2019).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Adler, P., Hillerislambers, J. & Levine, J. A niche for neutrality. Ecol. Lett. 10, 95–104 (2007).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Germain, R. M., Mayfield, M. M. & Gilbert, B. The ‘filtering’ metaphor revisited: competition and environment jointly structure invasibility and coexistence. Biol. Lett. 14, 20180460 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  20. Pau, S. et al. Predicting phenology by integrating ecology, evolution and climate science. Glob. Change Biol. 17, 3633–3643 (2011).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  21. Fargione, J. & Tilman, D. Niche differences in phenology and rooting depth promote coexistence with a dominant C4 bunchgrass. Oecologia 143, 598–606 (2005).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Godoy, O., Kraft, N. J. B. & Levine, J. M. Phylogenetic relatedness and the determinants of competitive outcomes. Ecol. Lett. 17, 836–844 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Díaz, S. et al. The global spectrum of plant form and function. Nature 529, 167–171 (2016).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Kunstler, G. et al. Plant functional traits have globally consistent effects on competition. Nature 529, 204–207 (2016).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Diffenbaugh, N. S., Swain, D. L. & Touma, D. Anthropogenic warming has increased drought risk in California. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 3931–3936 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  26. Swain, D. L., Langenbrunner, B., Neelin, J. D. & Hall, A. Increasing precipitation volatility in twenty-first-century California. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 427–433 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  27. Chesson, P. Geometry, heterogeneity and competition in variable environments. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 330, 165–173 (1990).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  28. Aronson, J., Kigel, J., Shmida, A. & Klein, J. Adaptive phenology of desert and Mediterranean populations of annual plants grown with and without water stress. Oecologia 89, 17–26 (1992).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Santa Barbara County Public Works water resources hydrology: historical rainfall data: daily and monthly rainfall. County of Santa Barbara http://www.countyofsb.org/pwd/water/downloads/hydro/421dailys.pdf (2019).

  30. Kandlikar, G. S., Kleinhesselink, A. R. & Kraft, N. J. B. Functional traits predict species responses to environmental variation in a California grassland annual plant community. J. Ecol. 110, 833–844 (2022).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Cleland, E. E. et al. Sensitivity of grassland plant community composition to spatial vs. temporal variation in precipitation. Ecology 94, 1687–1696 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Usinowicz, J. et al. Temporal coexistence mechanisms contribute to the latitudinal gradient in forest diversity. Nature 550, 105–108 (2017).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  33. Kandlikar, G. S., Johnson, C. A., Yan, X., Kraft, N. J. B. & Levine, J. M. Winning and losing with microbes: how microbially mediated fitness differences influence plant diversity. Ecol. Lett. 22, 1178–1191 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  34. Kleinhesselink, A. R., Kraft, N. J. B., Pacala, S. W. & Levine, J. M. Detecting and interpreting higher order interactions in ecological communities. Ecol. Lett. 25, 1604–1617 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  35. Saavedra, S. et al. A structural approach for understanding multispecies coexistence. Ecol. Monogr. 87, 470–486 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Levine, J. I., Levine, J. M., Gibbs, T. & Pacala, S. W. Competition for water and species coexistence in phenologically structured annual plant communities. Ecol. Lett. 25, 1110–1125 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  37. Farrior, C. E. et al. Resource limitation in a competitive context determines complex plant responses to experimental resource additions. Ecology 94, 2505–2517 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Harrison, S., Grace, J. B., Davies, K. F., Safford, H. D. & Viers, J. H. Invasion in a diversity hotspot: exotic cover and native richness in the Californian serpentine flora. Ecology 87, 695–703 (2006).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Pérez-Harguindeguy, N. et al. New handbook for standardised measurement of plant functional traits worldwide. Aust. J. Bot. 61, 167–234 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Godoy, O. & Levine, J. M. Phenology effects on invasion success: insights from coupling field experiments to coexistence theory. Ecology 95, 726–736 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Chumash peoples as the traditional land caretakers of the area where we planted our experiment, and the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands), where UCLA is located; G. Kandlikar, K. Hayashi and M. Vaz for helpful suggestions and stimulating discussions; A. Kleinhesselink and C. Johnson for help with analyses; H. Lindsay, M. Clarke, A. Dhaliwal, G. Kandlikar, K. Hayashi, A. Kleinhesselink, K. McCurdy, A. Hardy, L. Johnsen, M. Browne, J. Cooch, M. Cowen, S. Montague and F. Van Dyke for laboratory and field assistance. The work was funded by the La Kretz Center at Sedgwick Reserve, a UCLA Vavra fellowship and National Science Foundation grants DEB 164461 and 2022810 and 2022213.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Mary N. Van Dyke & Nathan J. B. Kraft

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Jonathan M. Levine

Authors
  1. Mary N. Van Dyke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jonathan M. Levine
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Nathan J. B. Kraft
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

M.N.V.D. and N.J.B.K. conceived and led the project. M.N.V.D., J.M.L. and N.J.B.K. developed the methods. M.N.V.D. carried out the field experiment and collected the data. Data were analysed and visualized by M.N.V.D. The initial manuscript was written by M.N.V.D. and N.J.B.K., with substantial contributions from J.M.L.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mary N. Van Dyke.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Effects of water treatment on each competing pairs’ stabilizing niche and fitness differences.

Each species pair shown separately with confidence intervals (+/− 1 SD) for stabilizing niche and fitness differences obtained from bootstrapping. Inside the grey shaded region indicates coexistence, outside indicates competitive exclusion.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Principal component analysis of functional traits from the focal plant community.

Principal component analysis with 23 species and eleven functional traits from previous work at the site10 (Methods). The six species from this study are filled in circles and labeled following Extended Data Table 1. The open circles represent other species in the community. See Extended Data Table 3 for trait descriptions.

Extended Data Table 1 Each species’ mean per capita seed production without competitors in the two treatments from the 0g/m2 background plots ± standard error
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Stabilizing niche and fitness difference calculations for each species pair under two rainfall treatments
Full size table
Extended Data Table 3 The eleven functional traits used to create the PCA in Extended Data Fig. 2 with their units and descriptions
Full size table
Extended Data Table 4 Ω, a structural analog of stabilizing niche differences and θ, a structural analog of fitness differences35 for each species pair and their predicted competition outcome using the structural method under the two rainfall treatments
Full size table
Extended Data Table 5 Ω, a structural analog of stabilizing niche differences and θ, a structural analog of fitness differences35 for each species triplet and their predicted competition outcome using the structural method under the two rainfall treatments
Full size table
Extended Data Table 6 Ω, a structural analog of stabilizing niche differences and θ, a structural analog of fitness differences35 for each species quadruplet, quintuplet and sextuplet, and their predicted competition outcome using the structural method under the two rainfall treatments
Full size table
Extended Data Table 7 Gravimetric water content (GWC) measured at three different times during the experiment
Full size table

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Van Dyke, M.N., Levine, J.M. & Kraft, N.J.B. Small rainfall changes drive substantial changes in plant coexistence. Nature 611, 507–511 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05391-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05391-9

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing