Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Mar 29;108(13):5302-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1013003108. Epub 2011 Mar 14.
The relationship between phylogenetic distance and ecological similarity is key to understanding mechanisms of community assembly, a central goal of ecology. The field of community phylogenetics uses phylogenetic information to infer mechanisms of community assembly; we explore, the underlying relationship between phylogenetic similarity and the niche. We combined a field experiment using 32 native plant species with a molecular phylogeny and found that closely related plant species shared similar germination and early survival niches. Species also competed more with close relatives than with distant relatives in field soils; however, in potting soil this pattern reversed, and close relatives might even have more mutalistic relationships than distant relatives in these soils. Our results suggest that niche conservatism (habitat filtering) and species interactions (competition or facilitation) structure community composition, that phylogenetic relationships influence the strength of species' interactions, and that conserved aspects of plant niches include soil attributes.
系统发育距离与生态相似性之间的关系是理解群落组装机制的关键，这是生态学的一个中心目标。群落系统发生学领域利用系统发育信息来推断群落组装的机制；我们探讨了系统发育相似性与生态位之间的潜在关系。我们结合了一项使用 32 种本地植物物种的野外实验、分子系统发育分析，发现亲缘关系较近的植物物种在萌发和早期生存的生态位上具有相似性。在野外土壤中，物种与近亲的竞争比与远亲的竞争更为激烈；然而，在盆栽土壤中，这种模式发生了逆转，在这些土壤中，近亲之间甚至可能比远亲之间具有更多的互利关系。我们的结果表明，生态位保守（生境过滤）和物种相互作用（竞争或促进）构建了群落组成，系统发育关系影响着物种相互作用的强度，而植物生态位的保守方面包括土壤属性。
