Links between tree species, symbiotic fungal diversity and ecosystem functioning in simplified tropical ecosystems

We studied the relationships among plant and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal diversity, and their effects on ecosystem function, in a series of replicate tropical forestry plots in the La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. Forestry plots were 12 yr old and were either monocultures of three tree species, or polycultures of the tree species with two additional understory species. Relationships among the AM fungal spore community, host species, plant community diversity and ecosystem phosphorus-use efficiency (PUE) and net primary productivity (NPP) were assessed. Analysis of the relative abundance of AM fungal spores found that host tree species had a significant effect on the AM fungal community, as did host plant community diversity (monocultures vs polycultures). The Shannon diversity index of the AM fungal spore community differed significantly among the three host tree species, but was not significantly different between monoculture and polyculture plots. Over all the plots, significant positive relationships were found between AM fungal diversity and ecosystem NPP, and between AM fungal community evenness and PUE. Relative abundance of two of the dominant AM fungal species also showed significant correlations with NPP and PUE. We conclude that the AM fungal community composition in tropical forests is sensitive to host species, and provide evidence supporting the hypothesis that the diversity of AM fungi in tropical forests and ecosystem NPP covaries.     

Linking traits to species diversity and community structure in phytoplankton

In addition to answering Hutchinson’s question “Why are there so many species?”, we need to understand why certain species are found only under certain environmental conditions and not others. Trait-based approaches are being increasingly used in ecology to do just that: explain and predict species distributions along environmental gradients. These approaches can be successful in understanding the diversity and community structure of phytoplankton. Among major traits shaping phytoplankton distributions are resource utilization traits, morphological traits (with size being probably the most influential), grazer resistance traits, and temperature responses. We review these trait-based approaches and give examples of how trait data can explain species distributions in both freshwater and marine systems. We also outline new directions in trait-based approaches applied to phytoplankton such as looking simultaneously at trait and phylogenetic structure of phytoplankton communities and using adaptive dynamics models to predict trait evolution.     

Placing biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in context: environmental perturbations and the effects of species richness in a stream field experiment

Greater biodiversity is often associated with increased ecosystem process rates, and is expected to enhance the stability of ecosystem functioning under abiotic stress. However, these relationships might themselves be altered by environmental factors, complicating prediction of the effects of species loss in ecosystems subjected to abiotic stress. In boreal streams, we investigated effects of biodiversity and two abiotic perturbations on three related indices of ecosystem functioning: leaf decomposition, detritivore leaf processing efficiency (LPE) and detritivore growth. Replicate field enclosures containing leaves and detritivore assemblages were exposed to liming and nutrient enrichment, raising pH and nutrient levels. Both treatments constitute perturbations for our naturally acidic and nutrient-poor streams. We also varied detritivore species richness and density. The effects of the abiotic and diversity manipulations were similar in magnitude, but whereas leaf decomposition increased by 18% and 8% following liming and nutrient enrichment, respectively, increased detritivore richness reduced leaf decomposition (6%), detritivore LPE (19%) and detritivore growth (12%). The detritivore richness effect on growth was associated with negative trait-independent complementarity, indicating interspecific interference competition. These interactions were apparently alleviated in both enriched and limed enclosures, as trait-independent complementarity became less negative. LPE increased with detritivore density in the monocultures, indicating benefits of intra-specific aggregation that outweighed the costs of intra-specific competition, and dilution of these benefits probably contributed to lowered leaf decomposition in the species mixtures. Finally, the effects of liming were reduced in most species mixtures relative to the monocultures. These results demonstrate how environmental changes might regulate the consequences of species loss for functioning in anthropogenically perturbed ecosystems, and highlight potential influences of biodiversity on functional stability. Additionally, the negative effects of richness and positive effects of density in our field study were opposite to previous laboratory observations, further illustrating the importance of environmental context for biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships.     

Linking limitation to species composition: importance of inter- and intra-specific variation in grazing resistance

Short-term responses of producers highlight that key nutrients (e.g., N, P)—or combinations of these nutrients—limit primary production in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. These discoveries continue to provide highly valuable insights, but it remains important to ask whether nutrients always predominantly limit producers despite wide variation in nutrient supply and herbivory among systems. After all, predictions from simple food chain models (derived here) readily predict that limitation by grazers can exceed that by nutrients, given sufficient enrichment. However, shifts in composition of producers and/or increasing dominance of invulnerable stages of a producer can, in theory, reduce grazer limitation and retain primacy of nutrient limitation along nutrient supply gradients. We observed both mechanisms (inter- and intra-species variation in vulnerability to herbivory) working in a two-part mesocosm experiment. We incubated diverse benthic algal assemblages for several months either in the presence or absence of benthic macro-grazers in mesocosms that spread a broad range of nutrient supply. We then conducted short-term assays of nutrient and grazer limitation on these communities. In the “historically grazed” assemblages, we found shifts from more edible, better competitors to more resistant producers over enrichment gradients (as anticipated by the food web model built with a tradeoff in resistance vs. competitive abilities). However, contrary to our expectations, “historically ungrazed” assemblages became dominated by producers with vulnerable juvenile forms but inedible adult forms (long filaments). Consequently, we observed higher resource limitation rather than grazer limitation over this nutrient supply gradient in both “historically grazed” (expected) and “historically ungrazed” (not initially expected). Thus, via multiple, general mechanisms involving resistance to grazing (changes in species composition or variation in stage-structured vulnerability), producer assemblages should remain more strongly or as strongly limited by nutrients than grazers, even over large enrichment gradients. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Linking diversity to function: highlight on the mineral weathering bacteria

What is the best way to identify new functions for which we currently know nothing? Here, we discuss the importance of combining cultivation-dependent and -independent approaches to identify new functions and new genes. We argue that although the cultivationdependent approach is presently viewed as an “old fashioned”, focusing only on a limited proportion of the total bacterial communities, it remains essential to the characterization as well as the discovery of new potential functions in bacteria. This will allow us to highlight potential model bacterial strains for further genomic and genetic studies and to identify genes of interest. By illustrating an example of a function for which our current knowledge is so far limited, mineral weathering, we highlight different steps necessary to study of the mineral weathering bacterial communities, decipher their respective role as well as their distribution in various ecological niches of the soil.     

The importance of individuals: intraspecific diversity of mycorrhizal plants and fungi in ecosystems

A key component of biodiversity is the number and abundance of individuals (i.e. genotypes), and yet such intraspecific diversity is rarely considered when investigating the effects of biodiversity of mycorrhizal plants and fungi on ecosystem processes. Within a species, individuals vary considerably in important reproductive and functional attributes, including carbon fixation, mycelial growth and nutrient utilization, but this is driven by both genetic and environmental (including climatic) factors. The interactions between individual plants and mycorrhizal fungi can have important consequences for the maintenance of biodiversity and regulation of resource transfers in ecosystems. There is also emerging evidence that assemblages of genotypes may affect ecosystem processes to a similar extent as assemblages of species. The application of whole-genome sequencing and population genomics to mycorrhizal plants and fungi will be crucial to determine the extent to which individual variation in key functional attributes is genetically based. We argue the need to unravel the importance of the diversity (especially assemblages of different evenness and richness) of individuals of both mycorrhizal plants and fungi, and the need to take a 'community genetics' approach to better understand the functional significance of the biodiversity of mycorrhizal symbioses.     

Bottom-up effects of species diversity on the functioning and stability of food webs

1. The importance of species diversity for the stability of populations, communities and ecosystem functions is a central question in ecology. 2. Biodiversity experiments have shown that diversity can impact both the average and variability of stocks and rates at these levels of ecological organization in single trophic-level ecosystems. Whether these impacts hold in food webs and across trophic levels is still unclear. 3. We asked whether resource species diversity, community composition and consumer feeding selectivity in planktonic food webs impact the stability of resource or consumer populations, community biomass and ecosystem functions. We also tested the relative importance of resource diversity and community composition. 4. We found that resource diversity negatively affected resource population stability, but had no effect on consumer population stability, regardless of the consumer's feeding selectivity. Resource diversity had positive effects on most ecosystem functions and their stability, including primary production, resource biomass and particulate carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations. 5. Community composition, however, generally explained more variance in population, community and ecosystem properties than species diversity per se. This result points to the importance of the outcomes of particular species interactions and individual species' effect traits in determining food web properties and stability. 6. Among the stabilizing mechanisms tested, an increase in the average resource community biomass with increasing resource diversity had the greatest positive impact on stability. 7. Our results indicate that resource diversity and composition are generally important for the functioning and stability of whole food webs, but do not have straightforward impacts on consumer populations.     

Molecular method to assess the diversity of Burkholderia species in environmental samples

In spite of the importance of many members of the genus Burkholderia in the soil microbial community, no direct method to assess the diversity of this genus has been developed so far. The aim of this work was the development of soil DNA-based PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), a powerful tool for studying the diversity of microbial communities, for detection and analysis of the Burkholderia diversity in soil samples. Primers specific for the genus Burkholderia were developed based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence and were evaluated in PCRs performed with genomic DNAs from Burkholderia and non-Burkholderia species as the templates. The primer system used exhibited good specificity and sensitivity for the majority of established species of the genus Burkholderia. DGGE analyses of the PCR products obtained showed that there were sufficient differences in migration behavior to distinguish the majority of the 14 Burkholderia species tested. Sequence analysis of amplicons generated with soil DNA exclusively revealed sequences affiliated with sequences of Burkholderia species, demonstrating that the PCR-DGGE method is suitable for studying the diversity of this genus in natural settings. A PCR-DGGE analysis of the Burkholderia communities in two grassland plots revealed differences in diversity mainly between bulk and rhizosphere soil samples; the communities in the latter samples produced more complex patterns.     

Biotic homogenization and changes in species diversity across human-modified ecosystems

Changing land use and the spread of 'winning' native or exotic plants are expected to lead to biotic homogenization (BH), in which previously distinct plant communities become progressively more similar. In parallel, many ecosystems have recently seen increases in local species (alpha-) diversity, yet gamma-diversity has continued to decline at larger scales. Using national ecological surveillance data for Great Britain, we quantify relationships between change in alpha-diversity and between-habitat homogenizations at two levels of organization: species composition and plant functional traits. Across Britain both increases and decreases in alpha-diversity were observed in small random sampling plots (10-200m2) located within a national random sample of 1km square regions. As alpha-diversity declined (spatially in 1978 or temporally between 1978 and 1998), plant communities became functionally more similar, but species-compositional similarity declined. Thus, different communities converged on a narrower range of winning trait syndromes, but species identities remained historically contingent, differentiating a mosaic of residual species-poor habitat patches within each 1km square. The reverse trends in beta-diversity occurred where alpha-diversity increased. When impacted by the same type and intensity of environmental change, directions of change in alpha-diversity are likely to depend upon differences in starting productivity and disturbance. This is one reason why local diversity change and BH across habitats are not likely to be consistently coupled.     

四种松毛虫表型性状多样性与环境因子的关系

对马尾松毛虫、落叶松毛虫、云南松毛虫、思茅松毛虫4种松毛虫的8个表型性状(蛹重、蛹长、雌雄虫体重、雌雄虫翅展和雌雄虫体长)进行了遗传多样性分析.结果表明:8项性状指标在4种松毛虫之间差异极显著;在所有性状中变异系数最大的是蛹重(CV=51.99％);对各种群变异系数比较分析发现,变异系数最大的是落叶松毛虫,最小的是云南松毛虫.主成分分析表明,蛹长、雌虫体重和雌虫翅展3个主分量构成的信息量基本能代表这8个性状的变异.系统聚类的结果为马尾松毛虫与落叶松毛虫聚为第一分支,思茅松毛虫和云南松毛虫聚为第二分支.松毛虫属昆虫表型性状的变异与生态环境因子的相关性较密切.     

Linking genes to communities and ecosystems: Daphnia as an ecogenomic model

How do genetic variation and evolutionary change in critical species affect the composition and functioning of populations, communities and ecosystems? Illuminating the links in the causal chain from genes up to ecosystems is a particularly exciting prospect now that the feedbacks between ecological and evolutionary changes are known to be bidirectional. Yet to fully explore phenomena that span multiple levels of the biological hierarchy requires model organisms and systems that feature a comprehensive triad of strong ecological interactions in nature, experimental tractability in diverse contexts and accessibility to modern genomic tools. The water flea Daphnia satisfies these criteria, and genomic approaches capitalizing on the pivotal role Daphnia plays in the functioning of pelagic freshwater food webs will enable investigations of eco-evolutionary dynamics in unprecedented detail. Because its ecology is profoundly influenced by both genetic polymorphism and phenotypic plasticity, Daphnia represents a model system with tremendous potential for developing a mechanistic understanding of the relationship between traits at the genetic, organismal and population levels, and consequences for community and ecosystem dynamics. Here, we highlight the combination of traits and ecological interactions that make Daphnia a definitive model system, focusing on the additional power and capabilities enabled by recent molecular and genomic advances.     

Linking variability in species composition and MODIS NDVI based on beta diversity measurements

Finding an effective method to quantify species compositional changes in time and space has been an important task for ecologists and biogeographers. Recently, exploring regional floristic patterns using data derived from satellite imagery, such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) has drawn considerable research interests among ecologists. Studies have shown that NDVI could be a fairly good surrogate for primary productivities. In this study, we used plant distribution data in the North and the South Carolina states to investigate the correlations between species composition and NDVI within defined ecoregions using Mantel test and multi-response permutation procedure (MRPP). Our analytical approach involved generating compositional dissimilarity matrices by computing pairwise beta diversities of the 145 counties in the two states for species distribution data and by computing Euclidian distances for NDVI time series data. We argue that beta diversity measurements take the pairwise dissimilarities into consideration explicitly and could provide more spatial correlation information compared with uni- or multi-dimensional regressions. Our results showed a significant positive correlation between species compositional dissimilarity matrices and NDVI distance matrices. We also found for the first time that the strength of correlation increased at a lower taxonomic rank. Same trends were discovered when incorporating variability in phenological patterns in NDVI. Our findings suggest that remotely sensed NDVI can be viable for monitoring species compositional changes at regional scales.     

The importance of meiofauna to lotic ecosystem functioning

• 1 Although meiofauna occur in large numbers in many streams, almost nothing is known about their functional role.
• 2 In other systems, meiofauna influence microbial and organic matter dynamics through consumption and bioturbation. Given that these are important processes in streams, meiofauna have the potential to influence lotic function by changing the quality and availability of organic matter as well as the number and biotic activity of benthic microbes. Selective feeding by meiofauna has the potential to alter the availability of nutrients and organic carbon.
• 3 Meiofauna generally contribute only a small amount to metazoan production and biomass in streams, although exceptions occur. Within a stream, the relative importance of meiofauna may reflect whether the temporary or permanent meiofauna dominate the meiobenthos as well as the season when samples are collected.
• 4 We suggest stream conditions (small sediment grain size, restricted interstitial flow) under which meiofauna have the greatest likelihood of influencing stream ecosystem function.
• 5 Important areas for future research include addressing whether meiofauna feed selectively, whether meiofauna are links or sinks for carbon in streams, and whether bioturbation by meiofauna influences stream ecosystem processes in a predictable manner.

     

Vegetation responses to environmental conditions in floodplain grasslands: Prerequisites for preserving plant species diversity

We studied plant species responses to environmental conditions in floodplain grasslands (alliance Cnidion) of the river Elbe (northern Germany) in order to describe relationships between species composition/diversity and underlying site gradients. We analysed a total area of 639 ha of floodplain grasslands, using 98 sampling plots. Vegetation responses to environmental conditions were examined by means of DCA. The relationships between species diversity and environmental conditions were examined using regression analyses. Our results show that species composition and species richness are mainly affected by present-day utilization, by the phosphate supply and by the productivity of stands. Species richness decreases significantly under grazing, with increasing phosphate supply and productivity of stands. Intermediate productivity levels, mowing and high inundation frequencies promote floodplain target species. N_inorg availability and base availability have only a minor impact on species composition/species diversity. Productivity is closely related to the amount of plant available phosphate. Low phosphate concentrations in the topsoil are particularly characteristic of Cnidium dubium floodplain meadows. Therefore, it is likely that in floodplain grasslands with low to intermediate productivity, phosphate is the most important factor influencing plant competition and plant species diversity. We hypothesize that an increased phosphate supply increases stand productivity and, hence, the competition for light, thus excluding weak competitors. This interpretation is supported by the present-day distribution of C. dubium floodplain meadows of the river Elbe: these are concentrated in the hybrid (between summer and winter dykes) and fossil floodplain (landward side of winter dykes), but have been replaced in the functional floodplain by grass-dominated plant communities as a result of a steady increase in the river water phosphate content. It is, therefore, only in the hybrid and fossil floodplain grasslands that species diversity may be preserved in the long term, as the P input is lower here than in the functional floodplain.     

Plant species diversity and composition of wet grasslands in relation to environmental factors

Relationships between environmental factors and plant species-richness as well as the composition of plant species in wet grasslands from the order Molinietalia caeruleae were studied with a view to quantifying the relative contribution of different abiotic factors, such as soil chemical parameters, climatic conditions and human impact to diversity of vascular plants and floristic composition. Data and soil samples were collected from 88 plots across Slovenia from regions at the eastern edge of the Po plain, karstic and pre-Alpine mountain regions and the western part of the Pannonian plain, which are classified to sub-Mediterranean, Dinnaric, pre-Alpine and sub-Pannonian phytogeographic areas. Plant diversity was positively correlated with the content of exchangeable Ca²⁺ in soil and the amount of annual precipitation, while significant negative correlation was calculated in case of the plant-available phosphorous content and altitude. Moreover, plant species richness was also negatively correlated with altitude. Among the groups of environmental factors the group of soil factors revealed the strongest correlation with species richness, followed by climatic and topographic group. The order of these groups was the same in the explanation of species composition. Variance of plant species composition was best explained with altitude, soil pH, geographical gradient, frequency of flooding, mean annual temperature, date of mowing, humidity, annual amount of precipitation as well as with the content of plant-available phosphorous, total nitrogen, exchangeable Mg²⁺ and Ca²⁺ in the soil.     

Consequences of plant-herbivore coevolution on the dynamics and functioning of ecosystems

The potential consequences of plant-herbivore coevolution for ecosystem functioning are investigated using a simple nutrient-limited ecosystem model in which plant and herbivore traits are subject to adaptive dynamics. Although the ecological model is very simple and always reaches a stable equilibrium in the absence of evolution, coevolution can generate a great diversity of dynamical behaviors. The evolutionary dynamics can lead to a stable equilibrium. If the evolution of plants is fast enough, certain values of the trade-off parameters lead to complex evolutionary cycles bounded by physiological constraints. The dynamical behavior of the model is very different when the dynamics of inorganic nutrient is ignored and plant competition is modeled by a logistic growth function. This emphasizes the importance of including explicit nutrient dynamics in studies of plant-herbivore coevolution.     

Testing the effectiveness of discrete and continuous environmental diversity as a surrogate for species diversity

Biodiversity surrogates are needed because detailed data on the distributions of species and communities is very limited. Among alternative surrogate strategies there is an environmental diversity (ED) framework, which uses the p-median model to sample environmental space as evenly as possible. The underlying idea is that such a sample would represent underlying species diversity well. However, tests of the effectiveness of ED as a surrogate for species diversity have been inconclusive, and there is a debate concerning the usefulness of different implementations of ED. In particular, it has been argued that tests of the ED framework are flawed because they used discrete algorithms (calculating the p-median from an observed environmental space), while continuous versions of ED should be preferred (i.e. calculating the p-median from a theoretical, continuously spaced, environmental space). Unfortunately, progress has been hampered by lack of independent testing of the two ED approaches. Here, we provide the first empirical test of the effectiveness of both continuous and discrete ED using European distributions of amphibians and reptiles. Analyses were implemented considering two different extents: (1) western Europe and (2) the Iberian Peninsula. In both cases, implementations of ED represented species at a lower rate than expected by chance (P < 0.05). Unlike suggested by some authors, the continuous ED was not consistently superior to the discrete form: continuous implementations of ED performed slightly better when fewer areas were selected and discrete ED performed better when the whole of the western European region was considered. Our results support findings that ED has only limited value as a surrogate for biodiversity and invite the interpretation that failure of ED is more likely to be related with oversimplification of assumptions underlying the model than to the particular p-median algorithm used.