Assessing The Indirect Facilitation In The Sub-alpine Meadow

Facilitation is one of the hot issues in theoretical ecology. And the research of facilitation focuses on indirect facilitation. When one species suppress a shared competitor, then the species imposes a kind of indirect positive effect on the target species, and if the indirect positive effect is stronger than the direct competitive effect, the indirect facilitation will occur. The research of indirect facilitation indicates that this effect is ubiquitous among different ecosystem. In addition, indirect facilitation plays an important role in population dynamics and community construction. We explored the indirect facilitation of Potentilla Fruticosa on community, functional group and species level, then we didn’t find the indirect facilitation at the community and functional group level, but we found significant indirect facilitation at the species level. The shrub had indirect facilitation on Astragalus polycladus, Anemone rivularis and Ajania tenuifolia, and put additional competition on Bupleurum commelynoideum and Anemone obtusiloba. We also found relationship between the intensity of indirect facilitation and the mean elevation range of the target species. These difference effects in different species may play an important role in plant community construction, and may have contributed to restoration of ecosystems.