Facilitation in plant communities: The past, the present, and the future

Rob W. Brooker*, Fernando T. Maestre, Ragan M. Callaway, Christopher L. Lortie, Lohengrin A. Cavieres, Georges Kunstler, Pierre Liancourt, Katja Tielbörger, Justin M.J. Travis, Fabien Anthelme, Cristina Armas, Lluis Coll, Emmanuel Corcket, Sylvain Delzon, Estelle Forey, Zaal Kikvidze, Johan Olofsson, Francisco Pugnaire, Constanza L. Quiroz, Patrick SacconeKatja Schiffers, Merav Seifan, Blaize Touzard, Richard Michalet

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

1421 Scopus citations

Abstract

1. Once neglected, the role of facilitative interactions in plant communities has received considerable attention in the last two decades, and is now widely recognized. It is timely to consider the progress made by research in this field. 2. We review the development of plant facilitation research, focusing on the history of the field, the relationship between plant-plant interactions and environmental severity gradients, and attempts to integrate facilitation into mainstream ecological theory. We then consider future directions for facilitation research. 3. With respect to our fundamental understanding of plant facilitation, clarification of the relationship between interactions and environmental gradients is central for further progress, and necessitates the design and implementation of experiments that move beyond the clear limitations of previous studies. 4. There is substantial scope for exploring indirect facilitative effects in plant communities, including their impacts on diversity and evolution, and future studies should connect the degree of non-transitivity in plant competitive networks to community diversity and facilitative promotion of species coexistence, and explore how the role of indirect facilitation varies with environmental severity. 5. Certain ecological modelling approaches (e.g. individual-based modelling), although thus far largely neglected, provide highly useful tools for exploring these fundamental processes. 6. Evolutionary responses might result from facilitative interactions, and consideration of facilitation might lead to re-assessment of the evolution of plant growth forms. 7. Improved understanding of facilitation processes has direct relevance for the development of tools for ecosystem restoration, and for improving our understanding of the response of plant species and communities to environmental change drivers. 8. Attempts to apply our developing ecological knowledge would benefit from explicit recognition of the potential role of facilitative plant-plant interactions in the design and interpretation of studies from the fields of restoration and global change ecology. 9. Synthesis: Plant facilitation research provides new insights into classic ecological theory and pressing environmental issues. Awareness and understanding of facilitation should be part of the basic ecological knowledge of all plant ecologists.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)18-34
Number of pages17
JournalJournal of Ecology
Volume96
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2008

Keywords

  • Competition
  • Disturbance
  • Ecological theory
  • Environmental change
  • Environmental gradients
  • Facilitation
  • Plant communities
  • Positive plant interactions
  • Review
  • Stress

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Ecology
  • Plant Science

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