The influence of abiotic and spatial variables on woody and herbaceous species abundances in a woodland-grassland system in the Eastern Terai of India

The environmental factors that influence tree-grass abundances in tropical savanna and grasslands are not well understood, particularly for woodland-grassland mosaics in humid zones. We studied the effects of abiotic and spatial variables on woody and herbaceous species distributions in a Terai ecosystem of northeastern India. We evaluated the importance of climatic and non-climatic factors that maintain variable tree-grass ratios across the landscape, and also accounted for spatial connectivity and dispersal. We measured species abundances of woody and herbaceous plant species in 134 plots with each 30 m x 30 m in a 519 km(2) protected Terai habitat, and derived several climatic and non-climatic environmental factors. We constructed variables based on different models of spatial connectivity among sites, to test their influence on species abundances. We then used redundancy analyses and variation partitioning to quantify the importance of environmental variables and spatial structure on variation in tree-grass abundances. We found that environmental variables including rainfall, fire, water stress, topography and soil nutrients had statistically significant effects on species abundance and tree-grass ratios. Spatial structure was significant, and the best spatial model was an inverse distance-weighted model with linkage extending to 23.5 km, indicating weak dispersal limitation. About 21% of the variation in species abundance was explained by the selected environmental and spatial factors. The results indicate that dynamic plant communities in which spatial-temporal variation in environmental factors may drive stochasticity in species distribution and abundance, thus dominantly influencing on the vegetation mosaic.

Automated summary

This study investigated the factors influencing tree-grass abundances in a Terai ecosystem in northeastern India. The results showed that environmental variables such as rainfall, fire, water stress, topography, and soil nutrients, as well as spatial structure, had significant effects on species abundance and tree-grass ratios. The study highlights the importance of spatial-temporal variations in environmental factors in driving species distribution and abundance.