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Zheng C, Shi H, Wei J, Cui M, Lin Z, Gao Y, Yuan L, Wen Z. Evidence that spatial scale and environment factors explain grassland community assembly in woodland-grassland ecotones. Ecol Evol 2024; 14:e11644. [PMID: 38962022 PMCID: PMC11221066 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.11644] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2024] [Revised: 06/07/2024] [Accepted: 06/12/2024] [Indexed: 07/05/2024] Open
Abstract
How communities of living organisms assemble has long been a central question in ecology. The impact of habitat filtering and limiting similarity on plant community structures is well known, as both processes are influenced by individual responses to environmental fluctuations. Yet, the precise identifications and quantifications of the potential abiotic and biotic factors that shape community structures at a fine scale remains a challenge. Here, we applied null model approaches to assess the importance of habitat filtering and limiting similarity at two spatial scales. We used 63 natural vegetation plots, each measuring 5 × 5 m, with three nested subplots measuring 1 × 1 m, from the 2021 field survey, to examine the alpha diversity as well as beta diversity of plots and subplots. Linear mixed-effects models were employed to determine the impact of environmental variables on assembly rules. Our results demonstrate that habitat filtering is the dominant assembly rules at both the plot and subplot levels, although limiting similarity assumes stronger at the subplot level. Plot-level limiting similarity exhibited a positive association with fine-scale partitioning, suggesting that trait divergence originated from a combination of limiting similarity and spatial partitioning. Our findings also reveal that the community assembly varies more strongly with the mean annual temperature gradient than the mean annual precipitation. This investigation provides a pertinent illustration of non-random assembly rules from spatial scale and environmental factors in plant communities in the loess hilly region. It underscores the critical influence of spatial and environmental constraints in understanding the assembly of plant communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cheng Zheng
- College of Grassland AgricultureNorthwest A&F UniversityYanglingShaanxiPeople's Republic of China
| | - Haijing Shi
- Institute of Soil and Water ConservationChinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water ResourcesYanglingShaanxiPeople's Republic of China
- Institute of Soil and Water ConservationNorthwest A&F UniversityYanglingShaanxiPeople's Republic of China
| | - Jiaqi Wei
- College of Grassland AgricultureNorthwest A&F UniversityYanglingShaanxiPeople's Republic of China
| | - Mengying Cui
- College of Grassland AgricultureNorthwest A&F UniversityYanglingShaanxiPeople's Republic of China
| | - Ziqi Lin
- College of Grassland AgricultureNorthwest A&F UniversityYanglingShaanxiPeople's Republic of China
| | - Yuan Gao
- Institute of Soil and Water ConservationChinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water ResourcesYanglingShaanxiPeople's Republic of China
| | - Liuhuan Yuan
- College of Grassland AgricultureNorthwest A&F UniversityYanglingShaanxiPeople's Republic of China
| | - Zhongming Wen
- College of Grassland AgricultureNorthwest A&F UniversityYanglingShaanxiPeople's Republic of China
- Institute of Soil and Water ConservationChinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water ResourcesYanglingShaanxiPeople's Republic of China
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Khattar G, Peres-Neto PR. The Geography of Metacommunities: Landscape Characteristics Drive Geographic Variation in the Assembly Process through Selecting Species Pool Attributes. Am Nat 2024; 203:E142-E156. [PMID: 38635361 DOI: 10.1086/729423] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/20/2024]
Abstract
AbstractThe nonrandom association between landscape characteristics and the dominant life history strategies observed in species pools is a typical pattern in nature. Here, we argue that these associations determine predictable changes in the relative importance of assembly mechanisms along broadscale geographic gradients (i.e., the geographic context of metacommunity dynamics). To demonstrate that, we employed simulation models in which groups of species with the same initial distribution of niche breadths and dispersal abilities interacted across a wide range of landscapes with contrasting characteristics. By assessing the traits of dominant species in the species pool in each landscape type, we determined how different landscape characteristics select for different life history strategies at the metacommunity level. We analyzed the simulated data using the same analytical approaches used in the study of empirical metacommunities to derive predictions about the causal relationships between landscape characteristics and dominant life histories in species pools, as well as their reciprocal influence on empirical inferences regarding the assembly process. We provide empirical support for these predictions by contrasting the assembly of moth metacommunities in a tropical versus a temperate mountainous landscape. Together, our model framework and empirical analyses demonstrate how the geographic context of metacommunities influences our understanding of community assembly across broadscale ecological gradients.
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Taylor A, Weigelt P, Denelle P, Cai L, Kreft H. The contribution of plant life and growth forms to global gradients of vascular plant diversity. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2023; 240:1548-1560. [PMID: 37264995 DOI: 10.1111/nph.19011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2022] [Accepted: 05/02/2023] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
Plant life and growth forms (shortened to 'plant forms') represent key functional strategies of plants in relation to their environment and provide important insights into the ecological constraints acting on the distribution of biodiversity. Despite their functional importance, how the spectra of plant forms contribute to global gradients of plant diversity is unresolved. Using a novel dataset comprising > 295 000 species, we quantify the contribution of different plant forms to global gradients of vascular plant diversity. Furthermore, we establish how plant form distributions in different biogeographical regions are associated with contemporary and paleoclimate conditions, environmental heterogeneity and phylogeny. We find a major shift in representation of woody perennials in tropical latitudes to herb-dominated floras in temperate and boreal regions, following a sharp latitudinal gradient in plant form diversity from the tropics to the poles. We also find significant functional differences between regions, mirroring life and growth form responses to environmental conditions, which is mostly explained by contemporary climate (18-87%), and phylogeny (6-62%), with paleoclimate and heterogeneity playing a lesser role (< 23%). This research highlights variation in the importance of different plant forms to diversity gradients world-wide, shedding light on the ecological and evolutionary pressures constraining plant-trait distributions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amanda Taylor
- Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, Faculty of Forest Sciences & Forest Ecology, University of Göttingen, Büsgenweg 1, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Patrick Weigelt
- Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, Faculty of Forest Sciences & Forest Ecology, University of Göttingen, Büsgenweg 1, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
- Centre of Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use (CBL), University of Göttingen, Büsgenweg 1, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
- Campus Institute Data Science, University of Göttingen, Goldschmidtstraße 1, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Pierre Denelle
- Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, Faculty of Forest Sciences & Forest Ecology, University of Göttingen, Büsgenweg 1, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Lirong Cai
- Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, Faculty of Forest Sciences & Forest Ecology, University of Göttingen, Büsgenweg 1, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Holger Kreft
- Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, Faculty of Forest Sciences & Forest Ecology, University of Göttingen, Büsgenweg 1, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
- Centre of Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use (CBL), University of Göttingen, Büsgenweg 1, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
- Campus Institute Data Science, University of Göttingen, Goldschmidtstraße 1, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
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Dobrovodská M, Kanka R, Gajdoš P, Krištín A, Kollár J, Stašiov S, Lieskovský J. Factors affecting the biodiversity of historical landscape elements: detailed analyses from three case studies in Slovakia. ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT 2023; 195:674. [PMID: 37188810 DOI: 10.1007/s10661-023-11035-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2022] [Accepted: 02/20/2023] [Indexed: 05/17/2023]
Abstract
A direct, positive correlation between biodiversity and the traditional agricultural landscape is evident on the national or regional scale. It is mostly conditioned by higher landscape diversity and less intensive farming. We have carried out research on a detailed scale at plot level (productive plots of arable lands, grasslands, vineyards, orchards, and unproductive agrarian landforms (mostly field margins) such as terraced slopes, terraced steps, heaps, mounds, and unconsolidated walls) in three traditional agricultural landscapes: the mountain village Liptovská Teplička, the vineyard landscape in Svätý Jur, and dispersed settlements in a submontane area in Hriňová. We determined the statistical significance of the impact of the selected landscape ecological factors (a set of factors concerning land use and management, agrarian landforms and relief properties) on the distribution of vegetation and selected invertebrate groups (spiders, millipedes, grasshoppers, and crickets). We also explored whether maintaining traditional land use and traditional management helped to enhance the biodiversity. We found that the management regime is the most important factor determining the species composition of vascular plants and all studied animal groups. Also, present land use and agrarian landforms character (type, skeleton content, continuity) are significant factors. Our expectation of a positive relationship between biodiversity and the maintaining traditional land use and traditional management was, in general, not confirmed: such a relation was only found in Svätý Jur for biodiversity of spiders.
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Affiliation(s)
- M Dobrovodská
- Institute of Landscape Ecology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Štefániková 3, 814 99, Bratislava, Slovakia.
| | - R Kanka
- Institute of Landscape Ecology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - P Gajdoš
- Institute of Landscape Ecology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Branch Nitra, Slovakia
| | - A Krištín
- Institute of Forest Ecology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Zvolen, Slovakia
| | - J Kollár
- Institute of Landscape Ecology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - S Stašiov
- Department of Biology and General Ecology, Faculty of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Technical University in Zvolen, Zvolen, Slovakia
| | - J Lieskovský
- Institute of Landscape Ecology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Branch Nitra, Slovakia
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SIMONS ARIELLEVI, CALDWELL STEVIE, FU MICHELLE, GALLEGOS JOSE, GATHERU MICHAEL, RICCARDELLI LAURA, TRUONG NHI, VIERA VALERIA. Constructing ecological indices for urban environments using species distribution models. Urban Ecosyst 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s11252-022-01265-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
Abstract
AbstractIn an increasingly urbanized world, there is a need to study urban areas as their own class of ecosystems as well as assess the impacts of anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity. However, collecting a sufficient number of species observations to estimate patterns of biodiversity in a city can be costly. Here we investigated the use of community science-based data on species occurrences, combined with species distribution models (SDMs), built using MaxEnt and remotely-sensed measures of the environment, to predict the distribution of a number of species across the urban environment of Los Angeles. By selecting species with the most accurate SDMs, and then summarizing these by class, we were able to produce two species richness models (SRMs) to predict biodiversity patterns for species in the class Aves and Magnoliopsida and how they respond to a variety of natural and anthropogenic environmental gradients.We found that species considered native to Los Angeles tend to have significantly more accurate SDMs than their non-native counterparts. For all species considered in this study we found environmental variables describing anthropogenic activities, such as housing density and alterations to land cover, tend to be more influential than natural factors, such as terrain and proximity to freshwater, in shaping SDMs. Using a random forest model we found our SRMs could account for approximately 54% and 62% of the predicted variation in species richness for species in the classes Aves and Magnoliopsida respectively. Using community science-based species occurrences, SRMs can be used to model patterns of urban biodiversity and assess the roles of environmental factors in shaping them.
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Hu W, Hou Q, Delgado-Baquerizo M, Stegen JC, Du Q, Dong L, Ji M, Sun Y, Yao S, Gong H, Xiong J, Xia R, Liu J, Aqeel M, Akram MA, Ran J, Deng J. Continental-scale niche differentiation of dominant topsoil archaea in drylands. Environ Microbiol 2022; 24:5483-5497. [PMID: 35706137 DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.16099] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2021] [Accepted: 06/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Archaea represent a diverse group of microorganisms often associated with extreme environments. However, an integrated understanding of biogeographical patterns of the specialist Haloarchaea and the potential generalist ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) across large-scale environmental gradients remains limited. We hypothesize that niche differentiation determines their distinct distributions along environmental gradients. To test the hypothesis, we use a continental-scale research network including 173 dryland sites across northern China. Our results demonstrate that Haloarchaea and AOA dominate topsoil archaeal communities. As hypothesized, Haloarchaea and AOA show strong niche differentiation associated with two ecosystem types mainly found in China's drylands (i.e., deserts vs. grasslands), and they differ in the degree of habitat specialization. The relative abundance and richness of Haloarchaea are higher in deserts due to specialization to relatively high soil salinity and extreme climates, while those of AOA are greater in grassland soils. Our results further indicate a divergence in ecological processes underlying the segregated distributions of Haloarchaea and AOA. Haloarchaea are governed primarily by environmental-based processes while the more generalist AOA are assembled mostly via spatial-based processes. Our findings add to existing knowledge of large-scale biogeography of topsoil archaea, advancing our predictive understanding on changes in topsoil archaeal communities in a drier world. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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Affiliation(s)
- Weigang Hu
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Qingqing Hou
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo
- Laboratorio de Biodiversidad y Funcionamiento Ecosistemico. Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla (IRNAS), CSIC, Av. Reina Mercedes 10, Sevilla, Spain.,Unidad Asociada CSIC-UPO (BioFun). Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla, Spain
| | - James C Stegen
- Ecosystem Science Team, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
| | - Qiajun Du
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Longwei Dong
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Mingfei Ji
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Yuan Sun
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Shuran Yao
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Haiyang Gong
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Junlan Xiong
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Rui Xia
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Jiayuan Liu
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Muhammad Aqeel
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Muhammad Adnan Akram
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.,School of Economics, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Jinzhi Ran
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Jianming Deng
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
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Khattar G, Vaz S, Braga PHP, Macedo M, Silveira LFLD. Life history traits modulate the influence of environmental stressors on biodiversity: The case of fireflies, climate and artificial light at night. DIVERS DISTRIB 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/ddi.13584] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Gabriel Khattar
- Department of Biology Concordia University Montreal Quebec Canada
| | - Stephanie Vaz
- Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Biologia Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro Brazil
| | | | - Margarete Macedo
- Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Biologia Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro Brazil
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Cecilio Rebola L, Pandolfo Paz C, Valenzuela Gamarra L, F R P Burslem D. Land use intensity determines soil properties and biomass recovery after abandonment of agricultural land in an Amazonian biodiversity hotspot. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2021; 801:149487. [PMID: 34418614 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149487] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2021] [Revised: 07/26/2021] [Accepted: 08/02/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
There has been widespread clearance of tropical forests for agriculture, but in many cases the cultivation phase is only transient. The secondary forests recovering on these abandoned sites may contribute to mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and protection of biodiversity, but the rates of recovery may be dependent on land-use intensity and changes in soil properties during cultivation. However fine-scale details on these changes are poorly known for many tropical forest locations. We quantified soil properties and recovery of woody biomass in 42 tropical forest fragments representing a chronosequence following two types of agricultural land-uses, and in 15 comparable reference old growth forests, between the Andes and the Amazon in Peru. Soil fertility, particularly base cation concentrations, responded negatively to increasing intensity of agricultural land-use, and either decreased or increased with time after abandonment dependent on prior land-use. The predicted mean recovery rate of woody biomass over the first 20 years following abandonment matched that predicted by a general model for the Neotropics, but recovery was three-fold higher on sites abandoned following traditional agriculture than on sites recovering from intensive agriculture. Estimated total biomass recovered to just above half that of reference old growth forests within 71 years. The inclusion of the biomass of lianas and smaller tree stems did not modify the apparent rate of ecosystem biomass recovery, however the proportion of the total biomass stored in small stems was greater following intensive than traditional agriculture, which suggests that patterns of stand structural development are sensitive to land-use history. We conclude that effects of historic land use on soil nutrient concentrations and their changes through time are required for a more complete interpretation of variation in biomass recovery rates at local scales. These results also highlight the critical importance of contemporary agricultural intensification for carbon storage in tropical forests.
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Affiliation(s)
- Loïc Cecilio Rebola
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Cruickshank Building, St Machar Drive, Aberdeen AB24 3UU, United Kingdom.
| | - Claudia Pandolfo Paz
- Sao Paulo State University (UNESP), Rua Quirino de Andrade 215, Centro, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
| | | | - David F R P Burslem
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Cruickshank Building, St Machar Drive, Aberdeen AB24 3UU, United Kingdom
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