Habitat diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality—The importance of direct and indirect effects

Alsterberg, Christian; Roger, Fabian; Sundbäck, Kristina; Juhanson, Jaanis; Hulth, Stefan; Hallin, Sara; Gamfeldt, Lars

doi:10.1126/sciadv.1601475

Cited by 92 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Environmental disturbances alter ecosystems by changing their structure and function (Schlesinger et al, ) and thereby their ability to obtain and expend energy. Individual sites are often impacted by disturbance differently, depending on their life history, plant functional diversity, and level of anthropogenic modification and/or management (Alsterberg et al, ; Schirpke et al, ). These differences can occur in systems that are in close proximity to one another (Starr et al, ), such as our study sites.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Metabolic Energy Density Metrics to Understand Differences in Ecosystem Function During Drought

et al. 2020

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Terrestrial ecosystems obtain energy in the form of carbon‐containing molecules. Quantifying energy acquisition and dissipation throughout an ecosystem may be useful for describing their resistance and resilience to disturbances. Three longleaf pine savannas with different vegetation composition—a result of variation in soil moisture and land use legacy—were used as a case study to test energy‐based metrics of ecosystem metabolic function. Available energy from gross ecosystem exchange of CO2 and its dissipation into metabolic energy density (EM) and energy storage were used to identify differences in drought recovery over an 8‐year period. Sites with higher plant functional diversity in the understory stored more energy and lowered their EM by ~20% when adapting to drought. In contrast, the site with greater abundance of woody understory and overstory species relied on stored energy twice as often as the more diverse sites. The absence of native understory species, due to anthropogenic legacy, prolonged ecosystem‐scale drought recovery by 1 year. This study provides the tools to understand differences in site metabolic energy dynamics and has the potential to identify site characteristics that indicate greater vulnerability to disturbances. Metabolic energy density can be applied to any global ecosystem and provides a first step to describe coupled carbon and energy allocation in ecosystems, which may be used to further refine ecological theory and its management implications.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Metabolic Energy Density Metrics to Understand Differences in Ecosystem Function During Drought

et al. 2020

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“…The details of the measurements are described in Alsterberg et al (2017) and Andersson et al (2014). Briefly, four sample of 3 ml homogenized sediment were incubated in gas tight exetainers together with 1.5 ml filtered seawater.…”

Section: Nitrogen Fixationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The V3-V4 region within the 16S rRNA gene as taxonomic marker for bacteria and archaea was already sequenced and data were obtained from our previous study (Alsterberg et al, 2017). Both the 16S rRNA and nifH genes were sequenced with Illumina MiSeq technology and 2 x 300 bp paired-end chemistry by Microsynth (Microsynth AG, Switzerland).…”

Section: Nitrogen Fixationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can we predict ecosystem functioning using tightly linked functional gene diversity?

Roger

Alsterberg

Wittorf

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Biodiversity generally affects ecosystem processes, but to what extent detailed knowledge about specific aspects of biodiversity helps us understand and predict specific ecosystem functions is not well-known. We hypothesised that information about functional gene abundance and diversity would provide a better way of predicting a particular function catalysed by that gene product, than would a more generic descriptor of species diversity. For our purposes, we used marine benthic nitrogen-fixing bacteria as a model system. We first used published observational data to relate nitrogen fixation to the abundance of the gene nifH, which encodes enzymes involved in the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen gas. We then used the fitted model, which explained 37% of the variance, to predict nitrogen fixation in other sediment samples for which nitrogen fixation and nifH abundance was determined. The model provided no predictive power for benthic nitrogen fixation on independent data. Additional information on the diversity of the general bacterial community, and the nitrogen fixing community in particular did not improve predictions. It was also not possible to predict nitrogen fixation based on the abundance of particular gene variants or bacterial taxa. Our results demonstrate that process rates can be intrinsically difficult to predict based on community metrics even when the community data and the process are tightly coupled.

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“…Measuring habitat diversity has become an important component of conservation ecology since the eighties (Fuller and Langslow, 1986;Usher, 1986) and even before in the early ecological approaches (Thoreau, 1860 andClements, 1916) and long time after (Lefcheck et al, 2015 andSheridan et al, 2017).Methods of measuring diversity and its effects on different ecosystems structure and functionality are numerous from the simple species counting to the complicated experimental work of habitat interactions (Alsterberg, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Habitat homogenization is one the reasons responsible for reducing species richness and diversity especially in the diversely rich habitats. Habitats are connected to each other not only on the species level but also on the habitat level, so one habitat that contains nitrogen fixers can facilitate nitrogen to adjacent habitats (Alsterberg, 2017). Biodiversity shift is not only affecting ecosystem on the species level but also on the level of its physical geography (Pickett andCadenasso, 1995 andHarborne et al, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat diversity and plant indicators of El-Harra Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt

Elsaied¹

2017

Int. J. Adv. Res. Biol. Sci

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Habitat diversity is one of the attractive concepts in ecology that reflects the wellbeing of ecological systems. A total of 30 stands were chosen to represent habitat diversity of El-Harra Oasis. Poaceae, fababceae and astraceae were the most common families with 33 species out of 79 species belonging to 29 families. Therophytes and Hemicryptophytes were the most common life forms with 72 % of the species recorded. Chorology of all non-cultivated taxa was investigated. Species richness, Shannon and Simpson diversity indices and evenness was calculated for each stand. Eighteen soil parameters were investigated and results showed large variation among stands. Seven vegetation groups were obtained from the Two-way cluster analysis classification. Environmental parameters correlation with vegetation groups were determined using DCA and DCCA. Significant factors were detected by one way analysis of variance among the seven vegetation groups. Results showed that soil salinity indicators, soil moisture content and soil particles were the most critical factors affecting the ecological diversity in El-Harra Oasis. Indicator species of the seven habitats were halotolreants or halophytes. Managing water resources and agriculture schemes should reduce the magnitudes of salinity problem in El-Harra Oasis.

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Habitat diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality—The importance of direct and indirect effects

Abstract: Both habitat diversity and species diversity are important factors in ecosystem productivity and nutrient cycling.

Cited by 92 publications

References 50 publications

Using Metabolic Energy Density Metrics to Understand Differences in Ecosystem Function During Drought

Using Metabolic Energy Density Metrics to Understand Differences in Ecosystem Function During Drought

Can we predict ecosystem functioning using tightly linked functional gene diversity?

Habitat diversity and plant indicators of El-Harra Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt

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