Why are there so many species? At a single site with the same climate, soil and resources, how can there be 64 species? Why not just one or two ‘most efficient’ species?
00:00 Species in flower 30th April 2025
04:30 How does high α-diversity arise?
07:03 Dominants, subordinates and transients
09:43 Why so many subordinates?
13:47 Filtering of dominants and subordinates
16:01 Niche partitioning and non-CSR traits
18:35 Stochasticity during community assembly
Part 4 considers the specific identities and traits of species to understand how the community assembles and why a few species are locally abundant (co-dominants) and many species are locally rare but consistently found (subordinates) or very inconsistently found (transients). Are the subordinate species potential dominants that have 'lost out' to the current dominants, or are they adapted to survive as subordinates? How can so much biodiversity be created in one location?
Part of a series on the forces creating biodiversity
Part 1: https://youtu.be/K6VLJoOzYkA
Part 2: https://youtu.be/3QPXlk6YgbM
Part 3: https://youtu.be/MemHyRDt3es
Part 5: https://youtu.be/u3PKpGWNwkw
(building upon: https://youtu.be/NuVTVDXGg_k).
Based on the peer-reviewed scientific paper:
Pierce, S., Vagge, I., Brusa, G. & Cerabolini B.E.L. (2014) The intimacy between sexual traits and Grime’s CSR strategies for orchids coexisting in semi-natural calcareous grassland at the Olive Lawn. Plant Ecology 215, 495–505. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-014-0318-y
See also:
Grime, J.P. & Pierce, S. (2012) The Evolutionary Strategies that Shape Ecosystems. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, UK. pp. 264. ISBN: 978-0470674819. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118223246
Pierce, S., Negreiros, D., Cerabolini, B.E.L., Kattge, J., Díaz, S., Kleyer, M., Shipley, B., Wright, S.J., Soudzilovskaia, N.A., Onipchenko, V.G., van Bodegom, P.M., Frenette-Dussault, C., Weiher, E., Pinho, B.X., Cornelissen, J.H.C., Grime, J.P., Thompson, K., Hunt, R., Wilson, P.J., Buffa, G., Nyakunga, O.C., Reich, P.B., Caccianiga, M., Mangili, F., Ceriani, R.M., Luzzaro, A., Brusa, G., Siefert, A., Barbosa, N.P.U., Chapin, F.S., III, Cornwell, W.K., Fang, J., Fernandes, G.W., Garnier, E., Le Stradic, S., Peñuelas, J., Melo, F.P.L., Slaviero, A., Tabarelli, M. and Tampucci, D. (2017), A global method for calculating plant CSR ecological strategies applied across biomes world-wide. Funct Ecol, 31: 444-457. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.12722
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