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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Assessing The Importance Of Nurse Plant Associations To The Growth Of Pre-~Reproductive Yucca Brevifolia, Eric James Chameroy
Assessing The Importance Of Nurse Plant Associations To The Growth Of Pre-~Reproductive Yucca Brevifolia, Eric James Chameroy
UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones
Facilitation and competition among plant species, in addition to abiotic factors, play an important role in determining plant community structure in arid and semi-arid environments. I conducted a study in Dry Lake Valley, Lincoln County, Nevada, USA to investigate the importance of nurse plant associations to pre-reproductive Yucca brevifolia (Joshua tree). Dry Lake Valley lies within a transition desert between the Mojave and Great Basin Deserts with ecotonal plant communities consisting of species representative of both deserts. A vegetation survey described the communities in which this study was conducted as a Y. brevifolia woodland dominated by an understory of Ephedra …
Inter- And Intra-Specific Interactions In Germination And Seedling Establishment Of Cheatgrass And Russian Wildrye, Erin K. Espeland
Inter- And Intra-Specific Interactions In Germination And Seedling Establishment Of Cheatgrass And Russian Wildrye, Erin K. Espeland
The Prairie Naturalist
Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is an invasive species in the arid and semi-arid west of the USA, and is weedy in disturbed prairie landscapes. Perennial Russian wildrye (Psathyrostachys juncea) limits population growth of cheatgrass, but the mechanism is unclear. I conducted glasshouse and greenhouse experiments to test if intra- and interspecific competitive interactions of seeds and seedlings of cheatgrass and Russian wildrye were different across a geographic soil gradient with different cultivation legacies in eastern Montana, USA. Seed-seed interactions occurred in both species. Cheatgrass and Russian wildrye inhibited one another’s emergence in one edaphic condition in one experiment. Cheatgrass growth was …