Trifolium subterraneum as a potential nurse plant for restoring soil and Mediterranean grasslands after quarry exploitation in Lebanon
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Destruction of Mediterranean herbaceous communities resulting from quarry exploitation exacerbates the need for their ecological restoration. By facilitating the growth and development of other plant species, nurse plants can be used to speed up regeneration processes. Nevertheless, differences in soil properties and co-existing species may change plant interactions from facilitation to competition. This study evaluated interactions of a potential nurse species, Trifolium subterraneum L., in a 2-years ex situ mesocosm experiment. During the first year, soils collected from a former quarry and a nearby dry-grassland were planted in pots with T. subterraneum alone or with four individuals of four target species ( Aegilops triuncialis L., Echinops viscosus L., Eryngium creticum Lam., Hyoscyamus aureus L.) characteristics of Mediterranean grasslands. In the second year, the same experiment was repeated following the incorporation of dried T. subterraneum biomass into the soil. Soil analyses were done before initiating the experiment from both reference and degraded soil, after the first and the second growing season. Index of Relative Interaction Intensity (RII) was calculated for several plant traits enabling the measuring of the plants' competitive ability. Our results show that, before starting the experiment, soils collected from both the reference and degraded sites were significantly different (e.g. CEC, pH, P 2 O 5 , MgO, N, C, Clay). These differences were still notable throughout the first growing season. Nevertheless, after the second growing season and whendried. T. subterraneum biomass was incorporated into the soil, a significant increase in soil fertility (e.g. N, C, C:N, P 2 O 5 ) was measured. For plants, during the first growing season, RII figures amidst competition dominating interactions. Facilitation was apparent only between the biomass of T. subterraneum pure seed mix in both degraded and reference soil. During the second growing season, T. subterraneum also performed better alone, especially on degraded soils. Nevertheless, because of its facilitative effects on biomass and surface cover when cultivated as a pure stand, T. subterraneum can be recommended as a nurse species for re-establishing soil fertility of degraded quarries as a first step of ecological restoration. • Destruction of Mediterranean grasslands needs sustainable habitat restoration. • Nurse plants can be used to speed up soil and plant regeneration processes. • Trifolium subterraneum L. (Fabaceae) has been tested as a potential nurse plant. • T. subterraneum shows only facilitative effects on itself when cultivated as a pure stand. • T. subterraneum can be recommended as a nature based solution for restoring only soil fertility.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".