31 Theory on plant succession predicts a temporal increase in the complexity of spatial 32 community structure and of competitive interactions: initially random occurrences of early 33 colonising species shift towards spatially and competitively structured plant associations in 34 late successional stages. Here we use long-term data on early plant succession in a German 35 post mining area to d...

In specific and obligate interactions the nature and abundance of a given species can have important effects on the survival and population dynamics of associated organisms. In a phylogeographic framework, we therefore expect that the fates of organisms interacting specifically are also tightly interrelated. Here we investigate such a scenario by analyzing the genetic structures of species inte...

We investigated soil streptomycete communities associated with four host plant species (two warm season C4 grasses: Andropogon gerardii, Schizachyrium scoparium and two legumes: Lespedeza capitata, Lupinus perennis), grown in plant communities varying in species richness. We used actinobacteria-selective PCR coupled with pyrosequencing to characterize streptomycete community composition and str...

Sustainable farming systems that maintain the diversity of arable plant communities and associated invertebrates are a key objective for European agriculture. Plant structure–function analysis and modelling are potentially important tools for studying these arable communities, and for understanding the impact of crop–weed interactions on crop productivity and on diversity in arable food webs. T...

In arid and semi-arid rangelands, grazing as one of the natural or human induced processes has direct and indirect effects on structure and dynamics of plant community and ecosystems. A study was done to analyze the effects of grazing on plant species diversity and Plant Functional Types‘ (PFTs) diversity of arid and semi-arid rangelands. We analyzed plant richness and diversity data from 75 sa...

in arid and semi-arid rangelands, grazing as one of the natural or human induced processes has direct and indirect effects on structure and dynamics of plant community and ecosystems. a study was done to analyze the effects of grazing on plant species diversity and plant functional types‘ (pfts) diversity of arid and semi-arid rangelands. we analyzed plant richness and diversity data from 75 sa...