The bioelements, the elementome, and the biogeochemical niche

Abstract

Every living creature on Earth is made of atoms of the various bioelements that are harnessed in the construction of molecules, tissues, organisms, and communities, as we know them. Organisms need these bioelements in specific quantities and proportions to survive and grow. Distinct species have different functions and life strategies, and have therefore developed distinct structures and adopted a certain combination of metabolic and physiological processes. Each species is thus also expected to have different requirements for each bioelement. We therefore propose that a “biogeochemical niche” can be associated with the classical ecological niche of each species. We show from field data examples that a biogeochemical niche is characterized by a particular elementome defined as the content of all (or at least most) bioelements. The differences in elementome among species are a function of taxonomy and phylogenetic distance, sympatry (the bioelemental compositions should differ more among coexisting than among non‐coexisting species to avoid competitive pressure), and homeostasis with a continuum between high homeostasis/low plasticity and low homeostasis/high plasticity. This proposed biogeochemical niche hypothesis has the advantage relative to other associated theoretical niche hypotheses that it can be easily characterized by actual quantification of a measurable trait: the elementome of a given organism or a community, being potentially applicable across taxa and habitats. The changes in bioelemental availability can determine genotypic selection and therefore have a feedback on ecosystem function and organization, and, at the end, become another driving factor of the evolution of life and the environment.

Anthropogenic global shifts in biospheric N and P concentrations and ratios and their impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem productivity, food security, and human health

“…Increasing evidence has established links between phylogeny and the elemental compositions of microbes, plants, and animals, including N and P concentrations and N:P ratios (Bartrons, Sardans, Hoekman, & Penuelas, ; Godwin & Cotner, ; González et al, ; González, Dézerald, Marquet, Romero, & Srivastava, ; Penuelas, Fernández‐Martínez, et al, ; Sardans et al, ). Anthropogenic increases in environmental and organismic N:P ratios in aquatic and terrestrial systems are generally associated with cascades of effects that benefit organisms with lower growth rates and lead to shifts in species community composition and function (Apple, Wink, Wills, & Bishop, ; Arnold, Shreeve, Atkinson, & Clarke, ; Ballantyne, Menge, Ostling, & Hosseini, ; Bishop et al, ; Carrillo, Villar‐Argaiz, & Medina‐Sánchez, ; Cernusak, Winter, & Turner, ; Chen, Yin, O'Connor, Wang, & Zhu, ; Elser, Peace, et al, ; Hall, ; Laliberté et al, ; Sasaki, Yoshhihara, Jamsran, & Ohkuro, ; Schindler et al, ; Shurin, Gruner, & Hillebrand, ; Wardle et al, ; Wassen, Olde Venterink, Lapshina, & Tanneberger, ).…”

“…Letter size is proportional to concentration . This trend in P retention tends to be more pronounced where the density of livestock, particularly pigs, and/or poultry is high (Arbuckle & Downing, 2001;Gomez-Garrido, Martinez-Martinez, Cano, Buyukkilic-Yanardag, & Arocena, 2014;Hentz et al, 2016;Penuelas, Fernández-Martínez, et al, 2019;Wironen et al, 2018), because the manure waste generated is characterized by very low N:P ratios (Humer, Schwarz, & Schedle, 2015;Oster et al, 2018).…”

Towards comparable assessment of the soil nutrient status across scales—Review and development of nutrient metrics

“…This, however, comes with several drawbacks such as neglecting potentially considerable phenotypic plasticity of species traits (Pakeman, ; Roscher et al, ). Related to this, while within‐species plastic variation results from variation in nutrient supply and status, genetic processes underlay average trait values, such that traits generally reflect nutrient demand rather than nutrient supply (Peñuelas et al, ).…”

“…As a result, two different species exhibiting high foliar N may be growing on soils with different soil nutrient status. Furthermore, stoichiometric flexibility strongly varies among species (Peñuelas et al, , ; Zechmeister‐Bolternstern et al, ). Therefore, for comparing the nutrient status among ecosystems differing in species composition, plant stoichiometry is likely less suitable than soil characteristics (Vicca et al, ).…”

Patterns and potential drivers of intraspecific variability in the body C, N, and P composition of a terrestrial consumer, the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus)

“…Given the very different patterns of energy and nutrient flows in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, which are driven primarily by the greater resource investments in structural support structures by terrestrial autotrophs (Shurin, Gruner, & Hillebrand, 2006), we may expect differences in vertebrate consumer body composition in different ecosystems. Knowledge of the patterns and drivers of terrestrial vertebrate body elemental composition may shed light on how they shape a species' ecological niche (González et al, 2018;González, Dézerald, Marquet, Romero, & Srivastava, 2017;Peñuelas et al, 2019). Further, it may improve our ability to predict the relationship between consumers and ecosystem processes (e.g., carbon cycling; Schmitz et al, 2014).…”