Evolution of species complementarity in response to drought in a grassland biodiversity experiment

Abstract Growing threats from extreme climatic events and biodiversity loss have raised concerns about their interactive consequences for ecosystem functioning. Evidence suggests that biodiversity is crucial to buffer ecosystem functioning facing climatic extremes. However, whether evolutionary processes in species mixtures underpin such biodiversity-dependent stabilizing effects remains elusive. We tested this hypothesis by exposing experimental mixtures of grassland species to eight recurrent summer droughts vs. control in the field. Seed offspring of 12 species were subsequently grown individually, in monocultures or in 2-species mixtures and subjected to a novel drought event in the glasshouse. Comparing mixtures with monocultures, drought-selected plants showed greater between-species complementarity than ambient-selected plants when recovering from the drought event, which led to greater biodiversity effects on community productivity and better recovery of drought-selected mixtures after the drought. These findings suggest biodiversity can buffer the impacts of extreme climatic events through evolution of species complementarity.

Download Full-text

Selection in response to community diversity alters plant performance and functional traits

10.1101/158709 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sofia J. van Moorsel ◽

Marc W. Schmid ◽

Terhi Hahl ◽

Debra Zuppinger-Dingley ◽

Bernhard Schmid

Keyword(s):

Rapid Evolution ◽

Species Conservation ◽

Functional Trait ◽

Community Diversity ◽

Plant Performance ◽

Conservation Practice ◽

Grassland Species ◽

Selection History ◽

Species Mixtures ◽

Biodiversity Effects

In grassland biodiversity experiments the positive biodiversity−ecosystem functioning relationship generally increases over time. However, we know little about the underlying short-term evolutionary processes. Using five plant species selected for twelve years in a biodiversity experiment in mixture or monoculture and plants without such a selection history, we assessed whether differential selection altered productivity, biodiversity effects, and functional trait differences within newly assembled monocultures and 2-species mixtures. Plants without past community selection history produced the lowest assemblage biomass and showed the weakest biodiversity effects. In newly assembled mixtures, plants with a selection history in mixtures produced more biomass than plants with a monoculture selection history. Biodiversity effects were generally positive and differed significantly between selection histories. However, contrary to our expectations, biodiversity effects were not stronger for mixture-type plants. Biodiversity effects were influenced by both trait differences between plants and community-weighted means, but these relationships were mostly independent of selection history. Our findings suggest that twelve years of selection history in monocultures or species mixtures differentiated plants of each species into monoculture-and mixture-types. Such rapid evolution of different community-types within grassland species and its effect on ecosystem services and functioning are likely to be important for species conservation practice.

Download Full-text

Faculty Opinions recommendation of Coexistence, niches and biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.717970146.793468874 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Andrew Gonzalez

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Biodiversity Effects

Download Full-text

Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning: insights from aquatic systems

Oikos ◽

10.1111/j.0030-1299.1999.13252.x ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 104 (3) ◽

pp. 419-422 ◽

Cited By ~ 51

Author(s):

Mark O. Gessner ◽

Pablo Inchausti ◽

Lennart Persson ◽

David G. Raffaelli ◽

Paul S. Giller

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Aquatic Systems ◽

Biodiversity Effects

Download Full-text

Disentangling biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning: deriving solutions to a seemingly insurmountable problem

Ecology Letters ◽

10.1046/j.1461-0248.2003.00471.x ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 6 (6) ◽

pp. 567-579 ◽

Cited By ~ 394

Author(s):

Shahid Naeem ◽

Justin P. Wright

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Insurmountable Problem ◽

Biodiversity Effects

Download Full-text

Biodiversity mediates the effects of stressors but not nutrients on litter decomposition

10.1101/2020.03.03.972547 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Léa Beaumelle ◽

Frederik De Laender ◽

Nico Eisenhauer

Keyword(s):

Environmental Change ◽

Litter Decomposition ◽

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Nutrient Inputs ◽

Biodiversity Change ◽

Biodiversity Changes

AbstractUnderstanding the consequences of ongoing biodiversity changes for ecosystems is a pressing challenge. Controlled biodiversity-ecosystem function experiments with random biodiversity loss scenarios have demonstrated that more diverse communities usually provide higher levels of ecosystem functioning. However, it is not clear if these results predict the ecosystem consequences of environmental changes that cause non-random alterations in biodiversity and community composition. We synthesized 69 independent studies reporting 660 observations of the impacts of two pervasive drivers of global change (chemical stressors and nutrient enrichment) on animal and microbial decomposer diversity and litter decomposition. Using meta-analysis and structural equation modelling, we show that declines in decomposer diversity and abundance explain reduced litter decomposition in response to stressors but not to nutrients. While chemical stressors generally reduced biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, detrimental effects of nutrients occurred only at high levels of nutrient inputs. Thus, more intense environmental change does not always result in stronger responses, illustrating the complexity of ecosystem consequences of biodiversity change. Overall, these findings provide strong empirical evidence for significant real-world biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships when human activities decrease biodiversity. This highlights that the consequences of biodiversity change for ecosystems are nontrivial and depend on the kind of environmental change.

Download Full-text

Avoiding artifacts when varying the number of species in ecological network models

10.22541/au.161253953.30718840/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Pablo Moisset de Espanes ◽

Rodrigo Ramos-Jiliberto ◽

José Soto-San Martín

Keyword(s):

Mathematical Models ◽

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Scale Invariance ◽

Ecological Theory ◽

Network Models ◽

Species Traits ◽

Testing Procedure ◽

Ecological Network ◽

Species Numbers ◽

Biodiversity Effects

Ecological theory recognizes the importance of the variety of species for maintaining the functioning of ecosystems and their derived services. We assert that when studying the effects of shifts in biodiversity levels using mathematical models, their dynamics must be sensitive to the variety of species traits but not to raw species numbers, a property that we call scale–invariance. We present a testing procedure for verifying scale–invariance of ecological network models —with or without trait adaptation— expressed as ODEs. Furthermore, we applied our test to several influential models used for evaluating biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning. In most of the surveyed studies the equations failed our test. This raises doubts about the validity of previous results and calls for revisiting the theory derived from these studies. Our results foster the creation of artifact–free models, a necessary step towards building a more robust theory of biodiversity–driven ecosystem functioning.

Download Full-text

No evidence of biodiversity effects on stream ecosystem functioning across green and brown food web pathways

Freshwater Biology ◽

10.1111/fwb.13876 ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Naiara López‐Rojo ◽

Luz Boyero ◽

Javier Pérez ◽

Ana Basaguren ◽

Bradley J. Cardinale

Keyword(s):

Food Web ◽

Ecosystem Functioning ◽

Stream Ecosystem ◽

Biodiversity Effects

Download Full-text

Genomic reconstruction of 100 000-year grassland history in a forested country: population dynamics of specialist forbs

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2018.0577 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 15 (5) ◽

pp. 20180577 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Yuichi Yamaura ◽

Ayu Narita ◽

Yoshinobu Kusumoto ◽

Atsushi J. Nagano ◽

Ayumi Tezuka ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Forest Harvesting ◽

Land Uses ◽

Grassland Species ◽

Grassland Ecosystems ◽

Simulation Based ◽

Population Sizes ◽

Extensive Farming ◽

Contemporary Management ◽

Demographic Simulation ◽

Grassland Biodiversity

Grassland ecosystems worldwide have been extensively converted to other land uses and are globally imperiled. Because many grasslands have been maintained by human activities, understanding their origin and history is fundamentally important to better contemporary management. However, existing methods to reconstruct past vegetation can produce contrasting views on grassland history. Here, we inferred demographic histories of 40 populations of four grassland forb species throughout Japan using high-resolution genome sequences and model-flexible demographic simulation based on the site frequency spectrum. Although two species showed a slight decline in population size between 100 000–10 000 years ago, our results suggest that population sizes of studied species have been maintained within the range of 0.5–2.0 times the most recent estimates for at least 100 000 years across Japan. Our results suggest that greater than 90% declines in Japanese grasslands and subsequent losses of grassland species in the last 100 years are geologically and biologically important and will have substantial consequences for Japanese biota and culture. People have had critical roles in maintaining disturbance-dependent grassland ecosystems and biota in this warm and wet forested country. In these contexts, disturbances associated with forest harvesting and traditional extensive farming have the potential to maintain grassland ecosystems and can provide important opportunities to reconcile resource production and conservation of grassland biodiversity.

Download Full-text