Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Life Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Climate change

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Botany

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Landscape Scale: Inter- And Intraspecific Variation In Plant Interactions Along A Stress Gradient In The Sheep Range Of Nevada, Jordan Dowell Dec 2019

Landscape Scale: Inter- And Intraspecific Variation In Plant Interactions Along A Stress Gradient In The Sheep Range Of Nevada, Jordan Dowell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Impending threats to shrubland ecosystems, posed by climate change, necessitate niche modeling efforts to project vegetation range shifts. However, efforts often remain unguided by individual-scale interspecific plant interactions. The stress gradient hypothesis posits that facilitation should increase in areas of high abiotic stress, only if the individuals are able to ameliorate the surrounding area via functional traits. The Sheep Range of Nevada was used to assess the role of functional traits as predictors of plant association. Larrea tridentata, Coleogyne ramosissima, and Artemisia nova were selected as shrubs with variable life history strategies and ranges in order to identify general patterns …