CHRISTOPHER P. CATANO, Ph.D.
How do regional & local process interact to shape variation in plant biodiversity across scales?
Dispersal and neutral sampling mediate contingent effects of disturbance on plant beta-diversity
Key finding: This synthesis of plant communities across 22 experiments in North America and Europe suggests that stochastic effects of dispersal on community assembly play an important role mediating biotic homogenization and biodiversity responses to disturbance. If our current ability to anticipate the consequences of altered disturbance regimes is dependent on stationary dispersal dynamics, then environmental change that simultaneously alters both disturbance and dispersal could undermine our predictive capacities.
Species pools size alters species-area relationships during experimental grassland community assembly
Key finding: The species pool concept advanced our understanding for how biodiversity is coupled at local and regional scales. However, it remains unclear how species pool size influences community assembly across spatial scales. I found larger species pools increased the slope of the species-area relationship, but not the intercept, suggesting that dispersal from a larger pool causes species to be more spatially aggregated. These scale-dependent effects suggest that studies evaluating species pools at a single, small scale may underestimate their effects, thereby contributing to uncertainty about the importance of regional processes for community assembly and their consequences for ecological restoration.
Soil resources cause species but not trait convergence across a regional network of grassland restorations
Key finding: Ecological restoration is notoriously unpredictable. However, I found plant communities generally converged over time owing to soil resources more so than restoration actions. In contrast, variation in trait composition remained stable. The unexpected pattern of species, but not trait, convergence during community assembly appears to result from increasing dominance of a native C4 bunchgrass that coincides with proportional declines of other functionally similar C4 grasses. This study suggests that plant community assembly driven by restoration may be more predictable than typically considered. Monitoring multiple facets of biodiversity across restorations can reveal why outcomes vary and inform broad-scale restoration planning.