Browsing by Author "Higgins, Steven Ian"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Predicting rates and patterns of alien plant spread
    (1998) Higgins, Steven Ian; Richardson, Dave
    The invasion of alien plants into natural ecosystems is a widespread phenomenon that impacts negatively on ecosystem structure and functioning. The invasion and subsequent spread of an alien plant population is equivalent to the processes of colonisation and migration. This implies that the existing toolbox of techniques developed for plant succession research should be useful for predicting plant invasions. Practitioners of invasion biology . have, however, found biological invasions frustratingly difficult to predict. The aim of this thesis was to use succession models to develop a modelling protocol for predicting rates and patterns of alien plant spread. The rationale was that such a model would both improve our understanding of the determinants of invasions and allow us to make predictions on the rates and patterns of alien plant spread. Such predictions are likely to be extremely valuable for the tactical and strategic management of plant invasions. Many modelling approaches could be .. adopted: the need to transcend the gap from general models of plant spread to management models led me to select a spatially explicit simulation modelling approach. The modelling approach is developed by comparing the behaviour of an individual based spatially explicit simulation (SEIBS) model of plant spread to the behaviour of the classic Skellam reaction diffusion model. This process also served to define the model's sensitivity and data requirements. The model's heuristic value is demonstrated by exploring why it is so difficult .to predict which plant will invade which environment. The model also ·provides a useful tool for exploring the role of long-distance dispersal in determining invasion rates. I show that long-distance dispersal is extremely difficult to define statistically, but is a key determinant of invasion rates. The model is validated using independent data on the spatial demography of two invasive species, Acacia cyclops and Pinus pinaster, and independent historical reconstructions of invasions. This validated model was then used to develop a dynamic landscape-extent model. This scaled-up model explores the optimal strategies for clearing alien plants and the ability of different clearing strategies and funding schedules to mitigate the threat that alien plants pose to native species. I conclude that models that are tightly linked to understanding of ecological processes and to field data can be used to rapidly develop predictive models. The development of these models challenges our fundamental ecological understanding and, therefore, emphasises the interplay between data, theory and prediction.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Rapid leaf deployment strategies in a deciduous savanna
    (Public Library of Science, 2016) February, Edmund Carl; Higgins, Steven Ian
    Deciduous plants avoid the costs of maintaining leaves in the unfavourable season, but carry the costs of constructing new leaves every year. Deciduousness is therefore expected in ecological situations with pronounced seasonality and low costs of leaf construction. In our study system, a seasonally dry tropical savanna, many trees are deciduous, suggesting that leaf construction costs must be low. Previous studies have, however, shown that nitrogen is limiting in this system, suggesting that leaf construction costs are high. Here we examine this conundrum using a time series of soil moisture availability, leaf phenology and nitrogen distribution in the tree canopy to illustrate how trees resorb nitrogen before leaf abscission and use stored reserves of nitrogen and carbon to construct new leaves at the onset of the growing season. Our results show that trees deployed leaves shortly before and in anticipation of the first rains with its associated pulse of nitrogen mineralisation. Our results also show that trees rapidly constructed a full canopy of leaves within two weeks of the first rains. We detected an increase in leaf nitrogen content that corresponded with the first rains and with the movement of nitrogen to more distal branches, suggesting that stored nitrogen reserves are used to construct leaves. Furthermore the stable carbon isotope ratios (δ 13 C) of these leaves suggest the use of stored carbon for leaf construction. Our findings suggest that the early deployment of leaves using stored nitrogen and carbon reserves is a strategy that is integrally linked with the onset of the first rains. This strategy may confer a competitive advantage over species that deploy leaves at or after the onset of the rains.