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Interactions between local climate and grazing determine the population dynamics of the small herb Viola biflora

  • Population ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Plants of low stature may benefit from the presence of large herbivores through removal of tall competitive neighbours and increased light availability. Accordingly, removal of grazers has been predicted to disfavour small species. In addition to this indirect beneficial effect, the population dynamics of plants is strongly influenced by variation in external conditions such as temperature and precipitation. However, few studies have examined the interaction between large herbivores and inter-annual variation in climate for the population dynamics of small plant species not preferred by herbivores. We studied three populations of the perennial herb Viola biflora exposed to different sheep densities (high, low and zero) for 6 years in a field experiment. Plants were also impacted by invertebrate and small vertebrate herbivores (rodents). Rates of growth were marginally higher at high sheep densities, and during warm summers both survival and growth were higher when sheep were present. Thus, while the height of tall herbs was positively related to July temperature, it was less so in the treatments with sheep, suggesting that sheep reduce the negative effects of interspecific competition for this small herb. Life table response experiment analyses revealed that the population growth rate (λ) was slightly lower in the absence of sheep, but between-year variation in λ was larger than variation among sheep density treatments. λ was negatively related to July temperature, with an additional negative effect of vertebrate grazing frequency (sheep or rodent grazing). The evidence from this 6-year study suggests that the population dynamics of Viola biflora is determined by a complex interplay between climate and grazing by both large and small herbivores.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Research Council of Norway (project 153601/432 and 134361/720). We are grateful to Synnøve Lindgren for help with field work in 2003, to Dagrun Vikhamar Schuler at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute for providing interpolated climate data, and to Miguel Franco and two anonymous referees for valuable comments that have greatly improved the manuscript. The sheep grazing experiment complies with the laws of Norway.

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  1. Marianne Evju

    Present address: Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Gaustadalléen 21, 0349, Oslo, Norway

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany, Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1172, Blindern, 0318, Oslo, Norway

    Marianne Evju & Rune Halvorsen

  2. Faculty of Science, Sogn og Fjordane University College, P.O. Box 133, 6851, Sogndal, Norway

    Knut Rydgren

  3. Museum of Natural History and Archaeology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491, Trondheim, Norway

    Gunnar Austrheim

  4. Department of Biology, Centre for Evolutionary and Ecological Synthesis (CEES), University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1066, Blindern, 0316, Oslo, Norway

    Atle Mysterud

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  1. Marianne Evju
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Correspondence to Marianne Evju.

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Communicated by Miguel Franco.

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Evju, M., Halvorsen, R., Rydgren, K. et al. Interactions between local climate and grazing determine the population dynamics of the small herb Viola biflora . Oecologia 163, 921–933 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1637-x

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