scholarly journals Interactive comment on “Drought resistance increases from the individual to the ecosystem level in highly diverse neotropical rain forest: a meta-analysis of leaf, tree and ecosystem responses to drought” by Thomas Janssen et al.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anonymous
2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Luis Martínez-Sánchez

In lowland tropical and temperate forests, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) resorption from senesced leaves may reflect a mechanism of conservation of a limiting nutrient (Edwards & Grubb 1982, Killingbeck 1996, Proctor et al. 1989, Scott et al. 1992, Songwe et al. 1997, Vitousek & Sanford 1986). At the ecosystem level it has important implications for element cycling. The nutrients which are resorbed during leaf senescence are directly available for further plant growth, which makes a species less dependent on current nutrient uptake. Nutrients which are not resorbed, however, will be circulated through litterfall in the longer term (Aerts 1996).


2017 ◽  
Vol 372 (1723) ◽  
pp. 20160142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Felton ◽  
Melinda D. Smith

Climate extremes will elicit responses from the individual to the ecosystem level. However, only recently have ecologists begun to synthetically assess responses to climate extremes across multiple levels of ecological organization. We review the literature to examine how plant responses vary and interact across levels of organization, focusing on how individual, population and community responses may inform ecosystem-level responses in herbaceous and forest plant communities. We report a high degree of variability at the individual level, and a consequential inconsistency in the translation of individual or population responses to directional changes in community- or ecosystem-level processes. The scaling of individual or population responses to community or ecosystem responses is often predicated upon the functional identity of the species in the community, in particular, the dominant species. Furthermore, the reported stability in plant community composition and functioning with respect to extremes is often driven by processes that operate at the community level, such as species niche partitioning and compensatory responses during or after the event. Future research efforts would benefit from assessing ecological responses across multiple levels of organization, as this will provide both a holistic and mechanistic understanding of ecosystem responses to increasing climatic variability. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Behavioural, ecological and evolutionary responses to extreme climatic events’.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinichi Nakagawa ◽  
Malgorzata Lagisz ◽  
Rose E O'Dea ◽  
Joanna Rutkowska ◽  
Yefeng Yang ◽  
...  

‘Classic’ forest plots show the effect sizes from individual studies and the aggregate effect from a meta-analysis. However, in ecology and evolution meta-analyses routinely contain over 100 effect sizes, making the classic forest plot of limited use. We surveyed 102 meta-analyses in ecology and evolution, finding that only 11% use the classic forest plot. Instead, most used a ‘forest-like plot’, showing point estimates (with 95% confidence intervals; CIs) from a series of subgroups or categories in a meta-regression. We propose a modification of the forest-like plot, which we name the ‘orchard plot’. Orchard plots, in addition to showing overall mean effects and CIs from meta-analyses/regressions, also includes 95% prediction intervals (PIs), and the individual effect sizes scaled by their precision. The PI allows the user and reader to see the range in which an effect size from a future study may be expected to fall. The PI, therefore, provides an intuitive interpretation of any heterogeneity in the data. Supplementing the PI, the inclusion of underlying effect sizes also allows the user to see any influential or outlying effect sizes. We showcase the orchard plot with example datasets from ecology and evolution, using the R package, orchard, including several functions for visualizing meta-analytic data using forest-plot derivatives. We consider the orchard plot as a variant on the classic forest plot, cultivated to the needs of meta-analysts in ecology and evolution. Hopefully, the orchard plot will prove fruitful for visualizing large collections of heterogeneous effect sizes regardless of the field of study.


1992 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah A. Clark ◽  
David B. Clark

2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-François Mauffrey ◽  
François Catzeflis

Stable isotopes are commonly used in ecological studies to infer food resources (Ambrose & DeNiro 1986, Bocherens et al. 1990,1991,1994;Yoshinaga et al. 1991) since isotopic composition is conserved during the feeding process. Moreover,for herbivorous (sensu lato) species, it is often possible to identify the main resource because different photosynthetic pathways generate different values of carbon isotope ratios (Park & Epstein 1961, Sternberg et al. 1984). This allows the characterization of broad biota such as savannas or forest and discrimination of grazers from sympatric folivorous species (DeNiro & Epstein 1978).


2017 ◽  
Vol 107 (09) ◽  
pp. 610-616
Author(s):  
S. Eisenhauer ◽  
F. Zimmermann ◽  
M. Reichart ◽  
P. Accordi ◽  
A. Prof. Sauer

Bisherige Studien über energetische Flexibilität in der deutschen Industrie weisen das vorhandene Flexibilitätspotenzial mit hoher Streuung aus. Diese Arbeit analysiert relevante Studien in Bezug auf deren Annahmen und Vorgehensweise. Aufbauend auf den bisherigen Vorgehensweisen wird ein Ansatz zur Erhebung der Daten im Produktionssystem vorgestellt. Des Weiteren wird eine Methode zur Aggregation der Daten hoch bis auf Branchenebene entwickelt.   Previous studies on the energetic flexibility of German industry show potentials with a large spread. Therefore, in this article, a systematic analysis of the individual studies and an evaluation of the indicated flexibility potentials are carried out. Based on the existing methods, a bottom-up approach for collecting the data in the production system and the aggregation up to the industry level is presented.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Kordas ◽  
Samraat Pawar ◽  
Guy Woodward ◽  
Eoin O'Gorman

Abstract Organisms have the capacity to alter their physiological response to warming through acclimation or adaptation, but empirical evidence for this metabolic plasticity across species within food webs is lacking, and a generalisable framework does not exist for modelling its ecosystem-level consequences. Here we show that the ability of organisms to raise their metabolic rate following chronic exposure to warming decreases with increasing body size. Chronic exposure to higher temperatures also increases the sensitivity of organisms to short-term warming, irrespective of their body size. A mathematical model parameterised with these findings shows that metabolic plasticity could account for an additional 60% of ecosystem energy flux with just +2 °C of warming. This could explain why ecosystem respiration continues to rise in long-term warming experiments and highlights the need to embed metabolic plasticity in predictive models of global warming impacts on ecosystems.


Nematology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Ann-Kristin Koehler ◽  
Christopher A. Bell ◽  
Matthew A. Back ◽  
Peter E. Urwin ◽  
Howard J. Atkinson

Summary Globodera pallida is the most damaging pest of potato in the UK. This work underpins enhancement of a well-established, web-based scenario analysis tool for its management by recommending additions and modifications of its required inputs and a change in the basis of yield loss estimates. The required annual decline rate of the dormant egg population is determined at the individual field sample level to help define the required rotation length by comparing the viable egg content of recovered cysts to that of newly formed cysts for the same projected area. The mean annual decline was 20.4 ± 1.4% but ranged from 4.0 to 39.7% annum−1 at the field level. Further changes were based on meta-analysis of previous field trials. Spring rainfall in the region where a field is located and cultivar tolerance influence yield loss. Tolerance has proved difficult to define for many UK potato cultivars in field trials but uncertainty can be avoided without detriment by replacing it with determinacy integers. They are already determined to support optimisation of nitrogen application rates. Multiple linear regression estimates that loss caused by pre-plant populations of up to 20 viable eggs (g soil)−1 varies from ca 0.2 to 2.0% (viable egg)−1 (g soil)−1 depending on cultivar determinacy and spring rainfall. Reliability of the outcomes from scenario analysis requires validation in field trials with population densities over which planting is advisable.


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