The influence of savanna trees on nutrient, water and light availability and the understorey vegetation

By F. Ludwig, H. de Kroon, F. Berendse, Herbert H. T. Prins. Plant Ecology, 2004

331 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Forestry, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9e6fdd40e9c30f26d45a1f6adbaacba4755392e1

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In Forestry

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

Citations in the corpus

Grass competition induces N2 fixation in some species of African Acacia (2007, background): “5) of leaf P with leaf N concentration indicate that the trees may be limited by P to some extent, as has been described previously for savanna trees in tropical Africa (Högberg 1986a,b) and suggested by the results of Ludwig et al. (2004).”
Refining the stress‐gradient hypothesis for competition and facilitation in plant communities (2009, neutral): “…driver of stress − situations potentially found in environments such as arid and semi-arid areas (e.g. Reynolds et al. 2000; Carrick 2003; Hipondoka et al. 2003; Ludwig et al. 2004b) − shifts in the balance of net interactions from competition to facilitation with increasing stress are less likely.”
Tree effects on grass growth in savannas: competition, facilitation and the stress‐gradient hypothesis (2013, background): “In savannas, trees may suppress grass growth through direct competition for water, light and nutrients resulting from overlapping root profiles and canopy shading (Scholes & Archer 1997; Ludwig et al. 2004b).”
Trees improve grass quality for herbivores in African savannas (2007, background): “Single standing trees of medium to low density usually have a positive effect on sub-canopy (SC) vegetation productivity (Belsky and Amundson, 1992), whereas dense woodlands tend to decrease grass cover and productivity due to decreased light intensity (Scholes 2003; Ludwig et al., 2004).”
Growth of N2‐fixing African savanna Acacia species is constrained by below‐ground competition with grass (2010, background): “Indeed, the C costs of N2 fixation are only likely to be a limitation for growth when nutrients other than N are sufficient (Högberg 1986a,b; Vitousek et al. 2002; Ludwig et al. 2004; van Groenigen et al. 2006).”
Investigation of plant growth and transpiration-induced matric suction under mixed grass-tree conditions (2017, neutral): “This is because of overlaps of the trees’ and grasses’ root systems and also shading of sunlight by the canopies of neighbouring trees (Scholes and Archer 1997; Ludwig et al. 2004).”
Local versus landscape‐scale effects of savanna trees on grasses (2009, background): “Trees, especially Acacias, have been shown to increase nutrient levels in the soil beneath their canopies, leading to increased grass productivity (Belsky et al. 1993; Ludwig et al. 2001, 2004b).”