Plant controls on Late Quaternary whole ecosystem structure and function |
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| Authors: | Elizabeth S. Jeffers Nicki J. Whitehouse Adrian Lister Gill Plunkett Phil Barratt Emma Smyth Philip Lamb Michael W. Dee Stephen J. Brooks Katherine J. Willis Cynthia A. Froyd Jenny E. Watson Michael B. Bonsall |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK;2. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK;3. Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum London, London, UK;4. School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK;5. School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK;6. Research Laboratory for Archaeology & the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK;7. Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum London, London, UK;8. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, UK;9. Department of Biosciences, Swansea University, Swansea, UK |
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| Abstract: | Plants and animals influence biomass production and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems; however, their relative importance remains unclear. We assessed the extent to which mega‐herbivore species controlled plant community composition and nutrient cycling, relative to other factors during and after the Late Quaternary extinction event in Britain and Ireland, when two‐thirds of the region's mega‐herbivore species went extinct. Warmer temperatures, plant–soil and plant–plant interactions, and reduced burning contributed to the expansion of woody plants and declining nitrogen availability in our five study ecosystems. Shrub biomass was consistently one of the strongest predictors of ecosystem change, equalling or exceeding the effects of other biotic and abiotic factors. In contrast, there was relatively little evidence for mega‐herbivore control on plant community composition and nitrogen availability. The ability of plants to determine the fate of terrestrial ecosystems during periods of global environmental change may therefore be greater than previously thought. |
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| Keywords: | Climate change landscape burning megafauna extinction nutrient cycling plant community composition plant– plant interactions plant– soil interactions |
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