%0 Dataset
%T The importance of facilitation on community assembly disappears under severe drought stress
%J National Cryosphere Desert Data Center
%I National Cryosphere Desert Data Center(www.ncdc.ac.cn)
%U http://www.ncdc.ac.cn/portal/metadata/c33f394f-931e-4a78-a13e-3fe7df40a3b8
%W NCDC
%R 10.5061/dryad.2547d7wsc
%A Gefei Zhang
%A None
%K Badain Jaran Desert;species relative abundance;habitat functional properties;Soil organic matter;maximum crown width
%X In the drought-stressed community in the Badain-Jaran Desert, the responses of the local community to the nurse shrub species Calligonum mongolicum Turcz. were evaluated using hierarchical Bayesian models. For the 3-year experiment, summer rainfall in each year formed a natural gradient of drought stress. To evaluate the shrub’s effects on the assembly process along that gradient, individual samples were collected in pairwise under-shrub and open habitats, and four traits related to stress tolerance and resource acquisition were measured simultaneously.This study focused on water-limited community that lies at the driest end of drought gradient and confirmed that facilitation can drive the assembly process through both environmental filtering and niche differentiation. More importantly, these assembly mechanisms are proven to become less efficient under extreme drought stress, which may suggest the occasionally disappearing role of benefactor plants on community assembly and an increasing risk of biodiversity loss in the context of climate change.