E. Winkler et S. Klotz, CLONAL PLANT-SPECIES IN A DRY-GRASSLAND COMMUNITY - A SIMULATION STUDY OF LONG-TERM POPULATION-DYNAMICS, Ecological modelling, 96(1-3), 1997, pp. 125-141
An individual-based spatially explicit grid-based model is developed t
o simulate the simultaneous development of two clonally growing grassl
and plant species. The model is based on long-term permanent-plot obse
rvations in a low-cover Thymo-Festucetum grassland community which is
characterized, besides of some low-abundant ('sparse') species, by the
interaction between the perennial tuft grass Festuca cinerea and the
stoloniferous rosette plant Hieracium pilosella. The grid-based model
includes rules for seedling recruitment, diaspore exchange, mortality,
tuft growth and rosette establishment, local interactions, and consid
ers the dependence of population parameters on environmental factors (
weather). The simulations give the characteristic spatial features of
the community (aggregations of grass tufts and of rosettes) and the hi
ghly fluctuating species abundances, They allow the assessment of the
importance of different factors which control the abundances in the co
mmunity: reproduction modes, intra- and interspecific interactions, de
pendence of life-history processes on weather conditions, and overall
climatic conditions. The mechanisms of the spatially explicit model ar
e concentrated by averaging over local interactions into analytical mo
dels (stochastic difference equations) which form a basis for a genera
l insight into community dynamics and for a large-scale study of heter
ogeneous grassland communities containing clonal plant species. (C) 19
97 Elsevier Science B.V.