Drought stress and dominant removal: effects on flowering
synchronization
Under the high-water level condition (control), we recorded zero
synchrony in RA within the community of subordinate species and
asynchrony across the entire species community (Fig. 2). Conversely, we
observed a shift towards synchronous reproductive allocation under both
drought stress treatments. The effect of dominant removal was not
significant for the RA synchrony of subordinate species (despite an
apparent trend for their higher synchrony in the low-water treatment).
Pairwise correlations showed the synchronous RA response (positive
correlation) only for the subordinate species and mostly for C.
elongata and D. cespitosa (Fig. 3). C. canescens synchronised flowering with other subordinate species only in a
permanent low-water treatment when the dominant species was removed.C. elata showed a negative correlation in RA with all species in
all treatments (Fig. 3).
Intraspecific RA for tussock species was also highly synchronous in the
high-water treatment (control) (Fig. 4). Individuals of C.
elongata even increased their RA synchrony in both drought stress
treatments. The weak trend suggests that dominant removal under drought
stress reduced synchrony in this species. We found no such response inD. cespitosa . In contrast, individuals of C. elata decreased their RA synchrony under the permanent drought stress
treatment.