Species Interactions Drive Fish Biodiversity Loss in a High-CO2 World

This chapter highlights the scale dependence of biodiversity change over time and its consequences for arguments about the instrumental value of biodiversity. While biodiversity is in decline on a global scale, the temporal trends on regional and local scales include cases of biodiversity increase, no change, and decline. Environmental change, anthropogenic or otherwise, causes both local extirpation and colonization of species, and thus turnover in species composition, but not necessarily declines in biodiversity. In some situations, such as plants at the regional scale, human-mediated colonizations have greatly outnumbered extinctions, thus causing a marked increase in species richness. Since the potential influence of biodiversity on ecosystem function and services is mediated to a large degree by local or neighborhood species interactions, these results challenge the generality of the argument that biodiversity loss is putting at risk the ecosystem service benefits people receive from nature.

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Changes in temperature alter the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1805518115 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 115 (43) ◽

pp. 10989-10994 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

Francisca C. García ◽

Elvire Bestion ◽

Ruth Warfield ◽

Gabriel Yvon-Durocher

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Species Interactions ◽

Thermal Tolerance ◽

Critical Role ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Ambient Conditions ◽

Pronounced Increase ◽

Biodiversity And Ecosystem Functioning ◽

The Relationship ◽

Environmental Warming

Global warming and the loss of biodiversity through human activities (e.g., land-use change, pollution, invasive species) are two of the most profound threats to the functional integrity of the Earth’s ecosystems. These factors are, however, most frequently investigated separately, ignoring the potential for synergistic effects of biodiversity loss and environmental warming on ecosystem functioning. Here we use high-throughput experiments with microbial communities to investigate how changes in temperature affect the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. We found that changes in temperature systematically altered the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. As temperatures departed from ambient conditions the exponent of the diversity-functioning relationship increased, meaning that more species were required to maintain ecosystem functioning under thermal stress. This key result was driven by two processes linked to variability in the thermal tolerance curves of taxa. First, more diverse communities had a greater chance of including species with thermal traits that enabled them to maintain productivity as temperatures shifted from ambient conditions. Second, we found a pronounced increase in the contribution of complementarity to the net biodiversity effect at high and low temperatures, indicating that changes in species interactions played a critical role in mediating the impacts of temperature change on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Our results highlight that if biodiversity loss occurs independently of species’ thermal tolerance traits, then the additional impacts of environmental warming will result in sharp declines in ecosystem function.

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Ecotone formation through ecological niche construction: the role of biodiversity and species interactions

10.1101/740282 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Kevin Liautaud ◽

Matthieu Barbier ◽

Michel Loreau

Keyword(s):

Species Interactions ◽

Ecological Niche ◽

Niche Construction ◽

Species Turnover ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Ecosystem Engineers ◽

Shared Environment ◽

Wide Range ◽

Rapid Changes

AbstractRapid changes in species composition, also known as ecotones, can result from various causes including rapid changes in environmental conditions, or physiological thresholds. The possibility that ecotones arise from ecological niche construction by ecosystem engineers has received little attention. In this study, we investigate how the diversity of ecosystem engineers, and their interactions, can give rise to ecotones. We build a spatially explicit dynamical model that couples a multispecies community and its abiotic environment. We use numerical simulations and analytical techniques to determine the biotic and abiotic conditions under which ecotone emergence is expected to occur, and the role of biodiversity therein. We show that the diversity of ecosystem engineers can lead to indirect interactions through the modification of their shared environment. These interactions, which can be either competitive or mutualistic, can lead to the emergence of discrete communities in space, separated by sharp ecotones where a high species turnover is observed. Considering biodiversity is thus critical when studying the influence of species-environment interactions on the emergence of ecotones. This is especially true for the wide range of species that have small to moderate effects on their environment. Our work highlights new mechanisms by which biodiversity loss could cause significant changes in spatial community patterns in changing environments.

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Asynchrony Drives Plant and Animal Community Stability in Mediterranean Coastal Dunes

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11136214 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (13) ◽

pp. 6214

Author(s):

Tania L.F. Bird ◽

Pua Bar (Kutiel) ◽

Elli Groner ◽

Amos Bouskila

Keyword(s):

Species Interactions ◽

Plant Cover ◽

Temporal Stability ◽

Coastal Dunes ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Community Stability ◽

Perennial Plant ◽

Strong Positive Relationship ◽

Long Term Ecological Research ◽

Animal Community

Substantial evidence now suggests that a positive diversity–stability relationship exists. Yet few studies examine the facets of biodiversity that contribute to this relationship, and empirical research is predominantly conducted on grassland communities under controlled conditions. We investigate the roles of species richness, environmental condition (vegetation cover), asynchrony, and weighted population stability in driving community stability across multiple taxa. We used data from a Long-term Ecological Research project to investigate temporal stability of annual plants, beetles, reptiles, and rodents in Nizzanim Coastal Sand Dune Nature Reserve in Israel. All four taxa had a strong positive relationship between asynchrony and community stability. Only rodents showed a positive richness–stability relationship. Perennial plant cover had a significant relationship with community stability for three taxa, but the direction of the correlation varied. Asynchrony had a stronger relationship with perennial plant cover than it did with richness for both plants and beetles. We suggest that community stability is driven by asynchrony for flora as well as fauna. Stability appears to be determined by species’ interactions and their responses to the environment, and not always by diversity. This has important consequences for understanding the effects of environmental degradation on ecosystem stability and productivity, which have destabilizing consequences beyond biodiversity loss.

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Biodiversity Loss

10.1017/cbo9781139174329 ◽

1995 ◽

Cited By ~ 63

Keyword(s):

Biodiversity Loss

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Effects of marine reserves on predator-prey interactions in central California kelp forests

Marine Ecology Progress Series ◽

10.3354/meps13526 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 655 ◽

pp. 139-155

Author(s):

DC Yates ◽

SI Lonhart ◽

SL Hamilton

Keyword(s):

Species Interactions ◽

Size Structure ◽

Marine Reserves ◽

Mortality Rates ◽

Kelp Forests ◽

Negative Effects ◽

Central California ◽

Invertebrate Predators ◽

Predatory Fishes ◽

Density And Biomass

Marine reserves are often designed to increase density, biomass, size structure, and biodiversity by prohibiting extractive activities. However, the recovery of predators following the establishment of marine reserves and the consequent cessation of fishing may have indirect negative effects on prey populations by increasing prey mortality. We coupled field surveys with empirical predation assays (i.e. tethering experiments) inside and outside of 3 no-take marine reserves in kelp forests along the central California coast to quantify the strength of interactions between predatory fishes and their crustacean prey. Results indicated elevated densities and biomass of invertebrate predators inside marine reserves compared to nearby fished sites, but no significant differences in prey densities. The increased abundance of predators inside marine reserves translated to a significant increase in mortality of 2 species of decapod crustaceans, the dock shrimp Pandalus danae and the cryptic kelp crab Pugettia richii, in tethering experiments. Shrimp mortality rates were 4.6 times greater, while crab mortality rates were 7 times greater inside reserves. For both prey species, the time to 50% mortality was negatively associated with the density and biomass of invertebrate predators (i.e. higher mortality rates where predators were more abundant). Video analyses indicated that macro-invertivore fishes arrived 2 times faster to tethering arrays at sites inside marine reserves and began attacking tethered prey more rapidly. The results indicate that marine reserves can have direct and indirect effects on predators and their prey, respectively, and highlight the importance of considering species interactions in making management decisions.

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The Ecology of Plant Chemistry and How It Drives Multi-Species Interactions

10.3389/978-2-88963-169-8 ◽

2019 ◽

Keyword(s):

Species Interactions ◽

Plant Chemistry

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The way of value of Correlation of genomic DNA microsatellite loci and live weight of Chukchi reindeer

Genetika i razvedenie zhivotnyh ◽

10.31043/2410-2733-2020-3-27-32 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 27-32

Author(s):

V. Dodokhov ◽

N. Pavlova ◽

T. Rumyantseva ◽

L. Kalashnikova

Keyword(s):

Microsatellite Markers ◽

Agricultural Production ◽

Live Weight ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Tribal Community ◽

High Germination ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Mean ◽

High Level ◽

Dna Microsatellite

The article presents the genetic characteristic of the Chukchi reindeer breed. The object of the study was of the Chukchi reindeer. In recent years, the number of reindeer of the Chukchi breed has declined sharply. Reduced reindeer numbers could lead to biodiversity loss. The Chukchi breed of deer has good meat qualities, has high germination viability and is adapted in adverse tundra conditions of Yakutia. Herding of the Chukchi breed of deer in Yakutia are engaged only in the Nizhnekolymsky district. There are four generic communities and the largest of which is the agricultural production cooperative of nomadic tribal community «Turvaurgin», which was chosen to assess the genetic processes of breed using microsatellite markers: Rt6, BMS1788, Rt 30, Rt1, Rt9, FCB193, Rt7, BMS745, C 143, Rt24, OheQ, C217, C32, NVHRT16, T40, C276. It was found that microsatellite markers have a wide range of alleles and generally have a high informative value for identifying of genetic differences between animals and groups of animal. The number of identified alleles is one of the indicators of the genetic diversity of the population. The total number of detected alleles was 127. The Chukchi breed of deer is characterized by a high level of heterozygosity, and the random crossing system prevails over inbreeding in the population. On average, there were 7.9 alleles (Na) per locus, and the mean number of effective alleles (Ne) was 4.1. The index of fixation averaged 0.001. The polymorphism index (PIC) ranged from 0.217 to 0.946, with an average of 0.695.

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