Biodiversity enhances ecosystem reliability

Naeem, Shahid; Li, Shibin

doi:10.1038/37348

Cited by 1,211 publications

(867 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The positive relationship between evenness and NPP mean and the negative relationship between evenness and NPP CV are consistent with previous plot-level manipulative studies which found that experimental treatments with higher diversity tend to have high productivity (Hooper and Vitousek 1997;Tilman and others 1997a;Hector and others 1999) and generally higher stability in productivity over time (Tilman and Downing 1994;Naeem and Li 1997;Bai and others 2004). However, the interpretation of a mechanism linking higher mean NPP and forest type evenness may be more challenging than the plot-scale results, because the forest types are, by definition, separated in space.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

“…Ecological theory suggests that variation in life-history traits among species or functional groups may capitalize on complementarity in resource utilization or acquisition that results in enhanced overall ecosystem function (for example, productivity) and/or stability (for example, variation in productivity through time) in systems with higher species or functional group richness (McNaughton 1977;Ives and others 1999;Naeem 2002;Hooper and others 2005;Loreau 2010). Although several studies have identified relationships between biological diversity and either the magnitude of ecosystem function (Hooper and Vitousek 1997;Tilman and others 1997a;Hector and others 1999) or the variability in ecosystem function over time (Tilman and Downing 1994;Naeem and Li 1997;Yachi and Loreau 1999;Bai and others 2004), those results continue to be questioned for several reasons including experimental design and interpretation (Pimm 1984;Givnish 1994;Naeem 2002;Pfisterer and Schmid 2002;Naeem and Wright 2003). Biological diversity may be progressively more important for sustaining ecosystem function in the context of increased environmental fluctuations and intensified disturbance regimes that are anticipated over the next several decades.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Divergence in Forest-Type Response to Climate and Weather: Evidence for Regional Links Between Forest-Type Evenness and Net Primary Productivity

Bradford

2011

Ecosystems

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Climate change is altering long-term climatic conditions and increasing the magnitude of weather fluctuations. Assessing the consequences of these changes for terrestrial ecosystems requires understanding how different vegetation types respond to climate and weather. This study examined 20 years of regional-scale remotely sensed net primary productivity (NPP) in forests of the northern Lake States to identify how the relationship between NPP and climate or weather differ among forest types, and if NPP patterns are influenced by landscape-scale evenness of forest-type abundance. These results underscore the positive relationship between temperature and NPP. Importantly, these results indicate significant differences among broadly defined forest types in response to both climate and weather. Essentially all weather variables that were strongly related to annual NPP displayed significant differences among forest types, suggesting complementarity in response to environmental fluctuations. In addition, this study found that forest-type evenness (within 8 9 8 km 2 areas) is positively related to long-term NPP mean and negatively related to NPP variability, suggesting that NPP in pixels with greater forest-type evenness is both higher and more stable through time. This is landscape-to subcontinental-scale evidence of a relationship between primary productivity and one measure of biological diversity. These results imply that anthropogenic or natural processes that influence the proportional abundance of forest types within landscapes may influence long-term productivity patterns.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Divergence in Forest-Type Response to Climate and Weather: Evidence for Regional Links Between Forest-Type Evenness and Net Primary Productivity

Bradford

2011

Ecosystems

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“…The current discussion about the role of biodiversity has focussed on the response variables productivity, remineralisation and stability (e.g. Naeem and Li 1997;Yachi and Loreau 1999). Generalising from our results, we propose two hypotheses concerning the role of functional diversity for top-down and bottom-up control:…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Daphnia versus copepod impact on summer phytoplankton: functional compensation at both trophic levels

Sommer¹,

Sommer²,

Santer

et al. 2003

Oecologia

103

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Here we report on a mesocom study performed to compare the top-down impact of microphagous and macrophagous zooplankton on phytoplankton. We exposed a species-rich, summer phytoplankton assemblage from the mesotrophic Lake Schöhsee (Germany) to logarithmically scaled abundance gradients of the microphagous cladoceran Daphnia hyalina galeata and of a macrophagous copepod assemblage. Total phytoplankton biomass, chlorophyll a and primary production showed only a weak or even insignificant response to zooplankton density in both gradients. In contrast to the weak responses of bulk parameters, both zooplankton groups exerted a strong and contrasting influence on the phytoplankton species composition. The copepods suppressed large phytoplankton, while nanoplanktonic algae increased with increasing copepod density. Daphnia suppressed small algae, while larger species compensated in terms of biomass for the losses. Autotrophic picoplankton declined with zooplankton density in both gradients. Gelatinous, colonial algae were fostered by both zooplankton functional groups, while medium-sized (ca. 3,000 m 3 ), non-gelatinous algae were suppressed by both. The impact of a functionally mixed zooplankton assemblage became evident when Daphnia began to invade and grow in copepod mesocosms after ca. 10 days. Contrary to the impact of a single functional group, the combined impact of both zooplankton groups led to a substantial decline in total phytoplankton biomass.

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“…Birds may prey on the spiders and might help control arthropod populations and maintain ecological stability in each garden (Gruner 2005). Species richness may help maintain ecological resilience and function after disturbances (Folke et al 1996, Naeem and Li 1997, Sattler et al 2010. Single species have limited functions they perform for ecosystems they inhabit.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local and Landscape Correlates of Spider Activity Density and Species Richness in Urban Gardens

2015

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Biodiversity enhances ecosystem reliability

Cited by 1,211 publications

References 14 publications

Divergence in Forest-Type Response to Climate and Weather: Evidence for Regional Links Between Forest-Type Evenness and Net Primary Productivity

Divergence in Forest-Type Response to Climate and Weather: Evidence for Regional Links Between Forest-Type Evenness and Net Primary Productivity

Daphnia versus copepod impact on summer phytoplankton: functional compensation at both trophic levels

Local and Landscape Correlates of Spider Activity Density and Species Richness in Urban Gardens

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