Tree–grass coexistence in savannas revisited – insights from an examination of assumptions and mechanisms invoked in existing models

By M. Sankaran, J. Ratnam, Niall P. Hanan. 2004

686 citations recorded by the source corpus.

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a1181bb40f8c8e603d44182afa18b9d4fe203e10

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Citations in the corpus

Evolution and origin of the Central Grassland of North America: climate, fire, and mammalian grazers1 (2006, background): “Sankaran et al. (2004) suggested that through fuel reduction grazers favor trees but browsers encourage grass.”
Timing of seed dispersal and dormancy, rather than persistent soil seed-banks, control seedling recruitment of woody plants in Neotropical savannas (2011, background): “…rather than persistent soil seed-banks, control seed germination of most cerrado woody species is consistent with some assumptions of non-equilibrium/demographic-bottleneck models that explain tree–grass coexistence in savannas (Higgins et al., 2000; Sankaran et al., 2004; Meyer et al., 2007).”
Fire as a global 'herbivore': the ecology and evolution of flammable ecosystems. (2005, background): “An alternative idea, consistent with consumer-controlled ecosystems, is that tree cover is limited by demographic bottlenecks at different lifehistory stages in tree growth [ 30 ,31].”
Noise-Induced Phenomena in the Environmental Sciences (2011, background): “We consider the case of mesic and subhumid savannas where the persistence of mixed tree–grass plant communities is maintained by fires (Sankaran et al., 2004; Higgins et al., 2000).”
What Limits Trees in C4 Grasslands and Savannas (2008, background): “The root niche assumption is not empirically supported in many savannas (Higgins et al. 2000, Sankaran et al. 2004, Scholes & Archer 1997).”
Are systems with strong underlying abiotic regimes more likely to exhibit alternative stable states (2005, unknown): “woodland savannas (Sankaran et al. 2004), salt marshes”
Herbivory and plant growth rate determine the success of El Niño Southern Oscillation‐driven tree establishment in semiarid South America (2006, unknown): “, 2005), but that actual woody cover depends also on disturbance regimes (herbivory and fire) and soil types (Scholes & Archer, 1997; Sankaran et al., 2004).”
Tree–grass coexistence in the Brazilian cerrado: demographic consequences of environmental instability (2006, background): “However, through incorporating available data on the role of tree–grass and tree–tree interactions, it goes some way towards satisfying the request of Sankaran et al. (2004) for a more synthetic approach towards modelling of savanna dynamics.”
Consequences of herbivory by native ungulates for the reproduction of a savanna tree (2007, background): “…speculated that other, less visually obvious, phenomena (i.e. reproduction, seedling survival and recruitment) might be equally important as or more important than adult survival in dictating tree abundance (Prins & Van der Jeugd 1993; Midgley & Bond 2001; Goheen et al. 2004; Sankaran et al. 2004).”