Variation in different measures of diversity during primary succession on a tropical coastal dune

ABSTRACT

Background: The understanding of the processes that govern community assembly during ecological succession helps determine the ecological attributes in restoration and monitoring programmes.

Aims: The aim of this long-term study of primary succession was to analyse changes in species richness, diversity, taxonomic distinctness and functional types to understand community assembly processes.

Methods: For 25 years, species turnover was monitored in 150 permanent plots in a dune system on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Results: Earliest successional states had low species diversity and richness, a high unevenness in the taxonomic tree structure, and a lower number of functional groups, with psammophytes being dominant. Richness and diversity increased in a humped-back shape with intermediate states reaching the highest values. Succession generated taxonomic trees that became less uneven and more diverse, and the diversity of functional groups increased.

Conclusions: The processes underlying community assembly are complex during succession: sand movement acts as an environmental filter affecting the dominant functional groups, and species interactions probably change from facilitation to competition. The understanding of the combined processes affecting the different measures of diversity over time can improve the effectiveness of restoration and conservation practice in dune systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental filtering
• evolutionary convergence
• functional diversity
• Gulf of Mexico
• taxonomic distinctness

Acknowledgements

We are thankful to Rosario Landgrave for her help with the figures and calculating Moran´s I. Our gratitude is also due to the many people (family, friends, colleagues and students) who helped us with the field work for so many years, as well as to the staff from the La Mancha field station. We are very grateful to the four reviewers and the editor whose comments and recommendations largely improved earlier versions of the manuscript. The study is part of the long-term studies performed at the MEX-LTER-La Mancha site.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by CONACYT under Grant number 1841 P-N and CEMIE-Océano (Centro Mexicano para la Innovación de Energía del Océano; Mexican Center for Innovation in Energy from the Ocean);Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología [1841 P-N];CONACYT-SENER [Cemie-Océano].

Notes on contributors

M. Luisa Martínez

M. Luisa Martínez is a plant ecologist with research interests in plant community dynamics, ecosystem services and human impact on the coasts.

Gabriela Vázquez

Gabriela Vázquez conducts studies at a landscape level, analysing the interactions between vegetation, land use and the dynamics and structure of aquatic communities.

Mario E. Favila

Mario E. Favila studies processes related to the structure and function of biodiversity in natural and modified ecosystems and to assess the effect of climate change on the distribution and adaptive responses of the species.

Lucero Álvarez-Molina

Lucero Álvarez-Molina is a plant ecologist with research interests in plant community dynamics and succession mainly in coastal ecosystems (coastal dunes, mangroves).