plant diversity and ecosystem function chapter 13
TRANSCRIPT
How does biodiversity affect ecosystem function (or vice versa)?
Regional species pool
Local community
structure
Biotic factors
Evolutionary processes
Physiological constraints
Historical events
Dispersalabilities
Habitatselection
From Morin (2011)
Abiotic factors
Interspecific competitionHerbivoryFacilitation, mutualism
Ecosystem function
• Productivity• Nutrient retention• Soil CO2 flux
Diversity
• Alpha: # species at the local scale
• Beta (β): Difference between communities, species turnover
• Gamma (γ): # species at regional scale γ = β x α
VS.
HIGHLOW
VS.
α:
β:
Whittaker 1960
How many species can be lost before ecosystem function is impacted?
• Tilman and Downing (1996)• Grassland in Minnesota• Looked at drought resistance of plant communities
with different levels of richness
How many species can be lost before ecosystem function is impacted?
• Naeem et al. (1994)
• 9, 15, and 31 species treatments – distributed among trophic levels
Ecotron, UK
Naeem et al. 1994
High diversity communities consumed more CO2 and were more productive (greater light interception)
Ways in which biodiversity can affect ecosystem function
• Productivity - how much carbon is assimilated
• Stability - how much productivity fluctuates under different environmental conditions
• Invasibility - indirectly affects ecosystem processes
Biodiversity and Productivity
• Scale dependant• Potential Mechanisms
– Productivity and size correlate (Oksanen 1996)
– Resource / energy constraints (Preston 1962, Wright et al. 1993)
– Competition and dominant species (Grime 1973)
– “Paradox of enrichment” (Rosenzweig 1971) – Reordering causes short term diversity losses
Biodiversity and Productivity – “Paradox of enrichment”
• With fertilization, productivity is generally increased, but species richness declines
• Speculated to be due to changes in which species is dominating the system Stevens and Carson 1999
Biodiversity and Productivity
Found positive relationship between species richness and productivity in US and across Europe
Loreau et al. 2001
Biodiversity and Productivity - Scale
Mittelbach et al. 2001
On a regional scale, productivity and diversity were correlated in many more systems than at smaller scales
Biodiversity and Productivity
The number of functional groups were shown to be more important than species richness (in this study at least)
Hector et al. 1999
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Stability
• Dynamic stability – System returns to its “original” state after small perturbations– Robert May (1973) thought that increased
diversity would actually lead to decreased dynamic stability
– New theoretical models suggest that increased diversity will not increase dynamic stability but might not decrease it either.
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Stability
• Stability - How much does a system differ from one year to the next (usually in terms of productivity)?– Coefficient of variation– Stability – signal to
noise ratio
Cv = σ/µ
Stability = µ /σ
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Stability
Signal to noise ratio
Tilman et al. 2006
Coefficient of variation
Tilman et al. 1996
Biodiversity and Invasion• Native richness can be
positively correlated with exotic species richness
• Observational pattern– No causation
• Resource rich vs. resource poor
• Beta diversity
Stohlgren et al. 1999
Biodiversity and Invasion• Environmental heterogeneity can
influence invasion (Davies et al. 2005)
• Suggests beta diversity may be just as, if not more important in controlling exotic species
Photo credit: Koerner, S.
Biodiversity and Invasion
• Invasive species can then have drastic effects on ecosystems– Reductions in
biodiversity– Drastic changes to soil
nutrient cycling (Ehrenfeld 2003)
– Can change disturbance regimes (D’antonio and Vitousek 1992, Mack and D’antonio 1998)
Exercise 1
• Dependent variable: Aboveground biomass (productivity)• independant variable: Species richness• Come up with a hypothesisQuestions:1. Describe the relationship between the number of plant
species and plant biomass2. How does the relationship between biomass and species
richness change over time? 3. How does it stay the same?4. How do the error bars change the way you interpret these
results?
Fargione and Tilman 2004 Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology (TIEE)
Sampling effect hypothesis
• With random assembly:– Higher diversity results
in a higher chance that there will exist a dominant species in the community, thus increasing productivity.
Loreau et al. 2001
Exercise 2
• Dependant variable: % plots exceeding biomass of the monoculture plots
• Independent variable: Species richness• Articulate hypothesis (Sampling effect)1. Do the data support or reject the hypothesis? Does
the answer depend on the year?2. Why might a diverse plot contain more biomass
than even the highest monoculture plot? Why might two species be better than one when it comes to biomass production?
Fargione and Tilman 2004 Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology (TIEE)
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