Biocrusts in Mexican deserts and semideserts: A review of their species composition, ecology, and ecosystem function

2022 ◽  
Vol 199 ◽  
pp. 104712
Author(s):  
Jessica Sosa-Quintero ◽  
Héctor Godínez-Alvarez ◽  
Sara Lucía Camargo-Ricalde ◽  
Maritza Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez ◽  
Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald ◽  
...  
2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (4) ◽  
pp. 838-846 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yadvinder Malhi ◽  
Christopher E. Doughty ◽  
Mauro Galetti ◽  
Felisa A. Smith ◽  
Jens-Christian Svenning ◽  
...  

Large herbivores and carnivores (the megafauna) have been in a state of decline and extinction since the Late Pleistocene, both on land and more recently in the oceans. Much has been written on the timing and causes of these declines, but only recently has scientific attention focused on the consequences of these declines for ecosystem function. Here, we review progress in our understanding of how megafauna affect ecosystem physical and trophic structure, species composition, biogeochemistry, and climate, drawing on special features of PNAS and Ecography that have been published as a result of an international workshop on this topic held in Oxford in 2014. Insights emerging from this work have consequences for our understanding of changes in biosphere function since the Late Pleistocene and of the functioning of contemporary ecosystems, as well as offering a rationale and framework for scientifically informed restoration of megafaunal function where possible and appropriate.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. 1449-1461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ya‐Huang Luo ◽  
Marc W. Cadotte ◽  
Kevin S. Burgess ◽  
Jie Liu ◽  
Shao‐Lin Tan ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Matthius Eger ◽  
Rebecca J. Best ◽  
Julia Kathleen Baum

Biodiversity and ecosystem function are often correlated, but there are multiple hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Ecosystem functions such as primary or secondary production may be maximized by species richness, evenness in species abundances, or the presence or dominance of species with certain traits. Here, we combined surveys of natural fish communities (conducted in July and August, 2016) with morphological trait data to examine relationships between diversity and ecosystem function (quantified as fish community biomass) across 14 subtidal eelgrass meadows in the Northeast Pacific (54° N 130° W). We employed both taxonomic and functional trait measures of diversity to investigate if ecosystem function is driven by species diversity (complementarity hypothesis) or by the presence or dominance of species with particular trait values (selection or dominance hypotheses). After controlling for environmental variation, we found that fish community biomass is maximized when taxonomic richness and functional evenness is low, and in communities dominated by species with particular trait values – those associated with benthic habitats and prey capture. While previous work on fish communities has found that species richness is positively correlated with ecosystem function, our results instead highlight the capacity for regionally prevalent and locally dominant species to drive ecosystem function in moderately diverse communities. We discuss these alternate links between community composition and ecosystem function and consider their divergent implications for ecosystem valuation and conservation prioritization.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annie-Claude Letendre ◽  
Darwyn S. Coxson ◽  
Katherine J. Stewart

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (6) ◽  
pp. 1279-1286
Author(s):  
G.P. Kononenko ◽  
◽  
E.A. Piryazeva ◽  
E.V. Zotova ◽  
A.A. Burkin ◽  
...  
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