Does the stress-gradient hypothesis hold water? Disentangling spatial and temporal variation in plant effects on soil moisture in dryland systems
January 1, 2016
- The nature of the relationship between water limitation and facilitation has been one of the most contentious debates surrounding the stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH), which states that plant-plant interactions shift from competition to facilitation with increasing environmental stress.
- We take a closer look at the potential role of soil moisture in mediating plant-plant interaction outcomes by assessing effects of climate and soil texture on plant modulation of soil moisture.
- Using an empirically-parameterized soil moisture model, we simulated soil moisture dynamics beneath shrubs and in un-vegetated coarse and fine soils for 1000 sites in the Western United States with
Citation Information
| Publication Year | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Title | Does the stress-gradient hypothesis hold water? Disentangling spatial and temporal variation in plant effects on soil moisture in dryland systems |
| DOI | 10.1111/1365-2435.12592 |
| Authors | Bradley Butterfield, John Bradford, Cristina Armas, Ivan Prieto, Francisco Pugnaire |
| Publication Type | Article |
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Series Title | Functional Ecology |
| Index ID | 70168512 |
| Record Source | USGS Publications Warehouse |
| USGS Organization | Southwest Biological Science Center |