Short-Term Responses of Alpine Vegetation to the Removal of Dominant versus Sparse Species

Abstract

The mass ratio hypothesis posits that ecosystem functions are predominantly influenced by the dominant species. However, it remains unclear whether a species must be abundant to exert functional dominance. We conducted a removal experiment in an alpine grassland near Pudacuo National Park, Yunnan, China, to assess the community and ecosystem impacts of the removed species. We implemented four treatments as follows: exclusive removal of the most abundant species (Blysmus sinocompressus), exclusive removal of a sparse species with high individual biomass (Primula secundiflora), simultaneous removal of both species, and a control with no removals. Results showed that removing B. sinocompressus significantly reduced biomass production, supporting the mass ratio hypothesis, while removal of P. secundiflora had negligible effects. B. sinocompressus removal positively impacted community metrics like coverage, species evenness, and the Shannon diversity index, but not species richness, likely due to its spatial dominance. Conversely, P. secundiflora removal had minimal community impact, probably due to its limited influence on nearby species. This study underscores the proportionate roles of the dominant species in alpine grasslands, emphasizing that their community and ecosystem impacts are proportional to their abundance.