scholarly journals Aridity-driven shift in biodiversity–soil multifunctionality relationships

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Weigang Hu ◽  
Jinzhi Ran ◽  
Longwei Dong ◽  
Qiajun Du ◽  
Mingfei Ji ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Diversity ◽  
Arid Regions ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Ecosystem Functions ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Soil Microbial Diversity ◽  
Ecosystem Multifunctionality

AbstractRelationships between biodiversity and multiple ecosystem functions (that is, ecosystem multifunctionality) are context-dependent. Both plant and soil microbial diversity have been reported to regulate ecosystem multifunctionality, but how their relative importance varies along environmental gradients remains poorly understood. Here, we relate plant and microbial diversity to soil multifunctionality across 130 dryland sites along a 4,000 km aridity gradient in northern China. Our results show a strong positive association between plant species richness and soil multifunctionality in less arid regions, whereas microbial diversity, in particular of fungi, is positively associated with multifunctionality in more arid regions. This shift in the relationships between plant or microbial diversity and soil multifunctionality occur at an aridity level of ∼0.8, the boundary between semiarid and arid climates, which is predicted to advance geographically ∼28% by the end of the current century. Our study highlights that biodiversity loss of plants and soil microorganisms may have especially strong consequences under low and high aridity conditions, respectively, which calls for climate-specific biodiversity conservation strategies to mitigate the effects of aridification.

scholarly journals Soil microbial diversity–biomass relationships are driven by soil carbon content across global biomes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe Bastida ◽  
David J. Eldridge ◽  
Carlos García ◽  
G. Kenny Png ◽  
Richard D. Bardgett ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Diversity ◽  
Soil Carbon ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Ecosystem Functions ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Soil Microbial Diversity ◽  
Soil Biodiversity ◽  
Soil C ◽  
Soil Microbial ◽  
Biomass Ratio

AbstractThe relationship between biodiversity and biomass has been a long standing debate in ecology. Soil biodiversity and biomass are essential drivers of ecosystem functions. However, unlike plant communities, little is known about how the diversity and biomass of soil microbial communities are interlinked across globally distributed biomes, and how variations in this relationship influence ecosystem function. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a field survey across global biomes, with contrasting vegetation and climate types. We show that soil carbon (C) content is associated to the microbial diversity–biomass relationship and ratio in soils across global biomes. This ratio provides an integrative index to identify those locations on Earth wherein diversity is much higher compared with biomass and vice versa. The soil microbial diversity-to-biomass ratio peaks in arid environments with low C content, and is very low in C-rich cold environments. Our study further advances that the reductions in soil C content associated with land use intensification and climate change could cause dramatic shifts in the microbial diversity-biomass ratio, with potential consequences for broad soil processes.

scholarly journals The Relative Importance of Agricultural and Wetland Habitats to Waterbirds in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta of California

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
W. David Shuford ◽  
Matthew Reiter ◽  
Kristin Sesser ◽  
Catherine Hickey ◽  
Gregory Golet
Keyword(s):  
Central Valley ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Open Water ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Habitat Associations ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
San Joaquin River ◽  
Conservation Actions ◽  
Surrounding Landscape ◽  
Abundance And Distribution

Biodiversity loss from agricultural intensification underscores the urgent need for science-based conservation strategies to enhance the value of agro-ecosystems for birds and other wildlife. California’s Central Valley, which has lost over 90% of its historical wetlands and currently is dominated by agriculture, still supports waterbird populations of continental importance. A better understanding of how waterbirds use available habitat is particularly needed in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, an ecosystem under threat. From 2013 to 2015, we studied waterbird habitat associations in the Delta during fall migration and winter by conducting diurnal counts at random locations in key waterbird habitats throughout the Delta. Waterbird use of cover types (agricultural crops and managed wetlands) varied substantially among waterbird groups, by season, and among geographic sub-regions of the Delta. Overall, wetlands were particularly important to waterbirds in fall. In winter, wetlands and flooded rice and corn were important to many waterbird groups, and non-flooded corn and irrigated pasture to geese and cranes. The factors that influenced waterbird abundance and distribution also varied substantially among groups and differed at various geographic scales. In both seasons, most groups had a positive association at the field level with flooded ground and open water, and a negative association with vegetation. Given the great uncertainty in the future extent and pace of habitat loss and degradation in the Delta, prioritizing the conservation actions needed to maintain robust waterbird populations in this region is urgent. For the Delta to retain its importance to waterbirds, a mosaic of wetlands and wildlife-friendly crops that accounts for the value of the surrounding landscape must be maintained. This includes restoring additional wetlands and maintaining corn, rice, alfalfa, and irrigated pasture, and ensuring that a substantial portion of corn and rice is flooded in winter.

scholarly journals Diversity and asynchrony in soil microbial communities stabilizes ecosystem functioning

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Wagg ◽  
Yann Hautier ◽  
Sarah Pellkofer ◽  
Samiran Banerjee ◽  
Bernhard Schmid ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Diversity ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Temporal Stability ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Ecosystem Functions ◽  
Soil Microbial Diversity ◽  
Soil Biodiversity ◽  
Soil Microbial

AbstractTheoretical and empirical advances have revealed the importance of biodiversity for stabilizing ecosystem functions through time. Yet despite the global degradation of soils, how the loss of soil microbial diversity can de-stabilizes ecosystem functioning is unknown. Here we experimentally quantified the contribution diversity and the temporal dynamics in the composition of soil microbial communities to the temporal stability of four key ecosystem functions related to nutrient and carbon cycling. Soil microbial diversity loss reduced the temporal stability of all ecosystem functions and was particularly strong when over 50% of microbial taxa were lost. The stabilizing effect of soil biodiversity was linked to asynchrony among microbial taxa whereby different soil fungi and bacteria were associated with different ecosystem functions at different times. Our results emphasize the need to conserve soil biodiversity in order to ensure the reliable provisioning of multiple ecosystems functions that soils provide to society.

scholarly journals Diversity and asynchrony in soil microbial communities stabilizes ecosystem functioning

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Wagg ◽  
Yann Hautier ◽  
Sarah Pellkofer ◽  
Samiran Banerjee ◽  
Bernhard Schmid ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Diversity ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Temporal Stability ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Ecosystem Functions ◽  
Soil Microbial Diversity ◽  
Soil Biodiversity ◽  
Soil Microbial ◽  
Plant Soil ◽  
Soil Mesocosms

Theoretical and empirical advances have revealed the importance of biodiversity for stabilizing ecosystem functions through time. Despite the global degradation of soils, whether the loss of soil microbial diversity can destabilize ecosystem functioning is poorly understood. Here, we experimentally quantified the contribution of soil fungal and bacterial communities to the temporal stability of four key ecosystem functions related to biogeochemical cycling. Microbial diversity enhanced the temporal stability of all ecosystem functions and this pattern was particularly strong in plant-soil mesocosms with reduced microbial richness where over 50% of microbial taxa were lost. The stabilizing effect of soil biodiversity was linked to asynchrony among microbial taxa whereby different soil fungi and bacteria promoted different ecosystem functions at different times. Our results emphasize the need to conserve soil biodiversity for the provisioning of multiple ecosystem functions that soils provide to the society.

Deciphering the associations between soil microbial diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality driven by long‐term fertilization management

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 1103-1116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gongwen Luo ◽  
Christopher Rensing ◽  
Huan Chen ◽  
Manqiang Liu ◽  
Min Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Diversity ◽  
Soil Microbial Diversity ◽  
Soil Microbial ◽  
Ecosystem Multifunctionality

scholarly journals The Relative Importance of Agricultural and Wetland Habitats to Waterbirds in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta of California

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
W. David Shuford ◽  
Matthew Reiter ◽  
Kristin Sesser ◽  
Catherine Hickey ◽  
Gregory Golet
Keyword(s):  
Central Valley ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Open Water ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Habitat Associations ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
San Joaquin River ◽  
Conservation Actions ◽  
Surrounding Landscape ◽  
Abundance And Distribution

Biodiversity loss from agricultural intensification underscores the urgent need for science-based conservation strategies to enhance the value of agroecosystems for birds and other wildlife. California’s Central Valley, which has lost over 90% of its historical wetlands and currently is dominated by agriculture, still supports waterbird populations of continental importance. A better understanding of how waterbirds use available habitat is particularly needed in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, an ecosystem under threat. From 2013 to 2015, we studied waterbird habitat associations in the Delta during fall migration and winter by conducting diurnal counts at random locations in key waterbird habitats throughout the Delta. Waterbird use of cover types (agricultural crops and managed wetlands) varied substantially among waterbird groups, by season, and among geographic subregions of the Delta. Overall, wetlands were particularly important to waterbirds in fall. In winter, wetlands and flooded rice and corn were important to many waterbird groups, and non-flooded corn and irrigated pasture to geese and cranes. The factors that influenced waterbird abundance and distribution also varied substantially among groups and differed at various geographic scales. In both seasons, most groups had a positive association at the field level with flooded ground and open water and a negative association with vegetation. Given the great uncertainty in the future extent and pace of habitat loss and degradation in the Delta, there is an urgency to prioritize conservation actions needed to maintain robust waterbird populations in this region. For the Delta to retain its importance to waterbirds, it will be necessary to maintain a mosaic of wetlands and wildlife-friendly crops that accounts for the value of the surrounding landscape. This includes restoring additional wetlands and maintaining corn, rice, alfalfa, and irrigated pasture, and ensuring that a substantial portion of corn and rice is flooded in winter.

scholarly journals Primary productivity as a control over soil microbial diversity along environmental gradients in a polar desert ecosystem

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e3377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Geyer ◽  
Cristina D. Takacs-Vesbach ◽  
Michael N. Gooseff ◽  
John E. Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Diversity ◽  
Primary Productivity ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Community Diversity ◽  
Desert Ecosystem ◽  
Soil Productivity ◽  
Organic Substrates ◽  
Soil Microbial Diversity ◽  
Soil Communities

Primary production is the fundamental source of energy to foodwebs and ecosystems, and is thus an important constraint on soil communities. This coupling is particularly evident in polar terrestrial ecosystems where biological diversity and activity is tightly constrained by edaphic gradients of productivity (e.g., soil moisture, organic carbon availability) and geochemical severity (e.g., pH, electrical conductivity). In the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, environmental gradients determine numerous properties of soil communities and yet relatively few estimates of gross or net primary productivity (GPP, NPP) exist for this region. Here we describe a survey utilizing pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) fluorometry to estimate rates of GPP across a broad environmental gradient along with belowground microbial diversity and decomposition. PAM estimates of GPP ranged from an average of 0.27 μmol O2/m2/s in the most arid soils to an average of 6.97 μmol O2/m2/s in the most productive soils, the latter equivalent to 217 g C/m2/y in annual NPP assuming a 60 day growing season. A diversity index of four carbon-acquiring enzyme activities also increased with soil productivity, suggesting that the diversity of organic substrates in mesic environments may be an additional driver of microbial diversity. Overall, soil productivity was a stronger predictor of microbial diversity and enzymatic activity than any estimate of geochemical severity. These results highlight the fundamental role of environmental gradients to control community diversity and the dynamics of ecosystem-scale carbon pools in arid systems.

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