Article
Soil Science
Xiaohua Wan, Zaipeng Yu, Mengjuan Wang, Yu Zhang, Manuel Esteban Lucas-Borja, Zhiqun Huang
Summary: This study explored how tree species richness affects soil microbial biomass and community composition through functional trait variation and community-weighted trait means. The findings indicated that an increase in tree species richness decreased total microbial biomass in the soil, with implications on gram-positive to gram-negative bacteria ratio and fungi to bacteria ratio based on leaf nitrogen content and leaf dry matter content traits.
SOIL BIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY
(2022)
Article
Biology
Patrick L. Thompson, Sonia Kefi, Yuval R. Zelnik, Laura E. Dee, Shaopeng Wang, Claire de Mazancourt, Michel Loreau, Andrew Gonzalez
Summary: The study used a Lotka-Volterra competition model to simulate the scale dependence of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, finding that more biodiversity is required to maintain functioning at larger spatial and temporal scales, with the autocorrelation of environmental heterogeneity influencing the rate at which the number of species needed increases.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Microbiology
Bo Wu, Xiaotong Guan, Ting Deng, Xueqin Yang, Juan Li, Min Zhou, Cheng Wang, Shanquan Wang, Qingyun Yan, Longfei Shu, Qiang He, Zhili He
Summary: Biodiversity is crucial for ecosystem functions and services. While there have been many studies on biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationships in plant and animal systems, it remains unclear if such a relationship exists and how it evolves in microbial systems. In this study, synthetic denitrifying communities (SDCs) were constructed using 12 Shewanella denitrifiers with varying species richness. The results showed a positive correlation between community richness and functions, but this correlation was only significant in earlier stages of the evolution experiment. Additionally, community functions generally increased throughout the experiment, with lower richness communities showing greater increases and positive BEF relationships largely attributable to complementary effects.
MICROBIOLOGY SPECTRUM
(2023)
Article
Soil Science
Apolline Auclerc, Lea Beaumelle, Sandra Barantal, Matthieu Chauvat, Jerome Corte, Tania De Almeida, Anne-Maimiti Dulaurentg, Thierry Dutoit, Sophie Joimel, Geoffroy Sere, Olivier Blight
Summary: Ecological engineering in degraded ecosystems often manipulates plants and soil biota for restoration. However, soil invertebrates have been underused in restoration efforts, despite their important role in soil ecological processes and plant-soil feedback. This review highlights the potential of using soil invertebrate functional traits for ecosystem restoration, focusing on traits related to nutrient and carbon cycling, pollutant detoxification, soil structure arrangement, and biological control. The paper proposes guidelines for integrating soil organism traits into ecological engineering and identifies knowledge gaps and limitations.
Article
Ecology
Shaopeng Wang, Forest Isbell, Wanlu Deng, Pubin Hong, Laura E. Dee, Patrick Thompson, Michel Loreau
Summary: The study found that complementarity promotes ecosystem stability while selection impairs it, with ecosystem functioning and stability exhibiting either a synergy or trade-off. The relationship between functioning and stability can be positively related across species richness levels, but negative relationships may occur when selection co-varies with richness.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Dieison Andre Moi, Heloisa Beatriz Antoniazi Evangelista, Roger Paulo Mormul, Luiz Roberto Evangelista, Sidinei Magela Thomaz
Summary: Diverse communities are more productive due to selection effect and complementarity effect, with ecosystem multifunctionality expected to increase with increasing species diversity. Experimental study showed that high macrophyte richness can enhance community biomass production, ecosystem multifunctionality, and stability.
Article
Plant Sciences
Jared D. Huxley, Caitlin T. White, Hope C. Humphries, Soren E. Weber, Marko J. Spasojevic
Summary: This study examines temporal dynamics in the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function using data from the alpine tundra of Colorado over a 13-year period.
JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
J. Rubio-Rios, J. Perez, M. J. Salinas, E. Fenoy, N. Lopez-Rojo, L. Boyero, J. J. Casas
Summary: The study found that plant diversity has positive effects on detritivore-mediated decomposition, litter nutrient losses, and detritivore biomass, especially in the presence of a key species - alder. However, there were negative effects on microbially mediated processes and fungal biomass, indicating that plant diversity loss can slow down the decomposition process and affect stream ecosystem functioning.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Jakob Runge
Summary: Detecting and quantifying causal relations in ecosystem functioning is challenging and involves reasoning about underlying assumptions. A global study on grasslands highlights the importance of considering confounding, nonlinearity, and determinism in modern causal inference approaches in ecology.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Chan Liu, Tingting Sun, Xuan Wu, Lu Tan, Qinghua Cai, Tao Tang
Summary: This study explored the relationships between species diversity and functional diversity with biomass in benthic diatom communities in a Chinese mountainous river network. The results showed that both species diversity and functional diversity had positive effects on community biomass, while species evenness had a negative effect. Furthermore, species diversity indirectly affected community biomass through influencing functional diversity. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships in lotic ecosystems for their conservation.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Natalie K. Rideout, Zacchaeus G. Compson, Wendy A. Monk, Meghann R. Bruce, Mehrdad Hajibabaei, Teresita M. Porter, Michael T. G. Wright, Donald J. Baird
Summary: The study examines the relationships among floodplain wetland habitats, invertebrate communities, and ecosystem function. It reveals the importance of environmental filters and traits linked to ecosystem functions in shaping the diversity and stability of floodplain ecosystems.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Nadine Engbersen, Laura Stefan, Rob W. Brooker, Christian Schob
Summary: Increasing crop diversity enhances seed yield through a combination of selection and complementarity effects, with plant height and specific leaf area playing important roles. The increase in seed yield from monocultures to mixtures is driven by different ecological processes, highlighting the complex interactions in diverse cropping systems.
ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Alexander Feckler, Jacob Schnurr, Gabriela Kalcikova, Amelie Truchy, Brendan G. McKie, Ralf B. Schaefer, Ralf Schulz, Mirco Bundschuh
Summary: Leaf litter decomposition is an important ecosystem process in streams, and its efficiency is affected by leaf litter diversity, agricultural intensity, habitat characteristics, water quality, and invertebrate composition. The study found that increasing agricultural intensity weakens the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship, which could threaten carbon cycling and food web integrity in streams.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Alejandro Berlinches de Gea, Yann Hautier, Stefan Geisen
Summary: Biodiversity, both aboveground and belowground, is negatively affected by global changes such as drought or warming. This article highlights the need to understand the relationship between soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning under the influence of interactive global change drivers. The results from scarce studies studying interactive effects range from antagonistic to additive to synergistic, indicating the importance of quantitatively accounting for the impacts of interactive global change drivers on soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning relationships.
GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
J. C. Fisher, M. Dallimer, K. N. Irvine, S. G. Aizlewood, G. E. Austen, R. D. Fish, P. M. King, Z. G. Davies
Summary: People depend on functioning ecosystems for essential services that support human health and well-being, making biodiversity loss a significant concern. Understanding the species and traits that contribute to well-being responses is a critical question. This study analyzes a database of species' effect traits and their impacts on various types of well-being.
NATURE SUSTAINABILITY
(2023)
Article
Biology
Iain Hunter, Raz Leib
Summary: Natural movement is related to health, but it is difficult to measure. Existing methods cannot capture the full range of natural movement. Comparing movement across different species helps identify common biomechanical and computational principles. Developing a system to quantify movement in freely moving animals in natural environments and relating it to life quality is crucial. This study proposes a theoretical framework based on movement ability and validates it in Drosophila.
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
(2024)
Article
Biology
Andy Gardner
Summary: Fisher's geometric model is a useful tool for predicting key properties of Darwinian adaptation, and here it is applied to predict differences between the evolution of altruistic versus nonsocial phenotypes. The results suggest that the effect size maximizing probability of fixation is smaller in the context of altruism and larger in the context of nonsocial phenotypes, leading to lower overall probability of fixation for altruism and higher overall probability of fixation for nonsocial phenotypes.
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
(2024)
Article
Biology
Thomas F. Pak, Joe Pitt-Francis, Ruth E. Baker
Summary: Cell competition is a process where cells interact in multicellular organisms to determine a winner or loser status, with loser cells being eliminated through programmed cell death. The winner cells then populate the tissue. The outcome of cell competition is context-dependent, as the same cell type can win or lose depending on the competing cell type. This paper proposes a mathematical framework to study the emergence of winner or loser status, highlighting the role of active cell death and identifying the factors that drive cell competition in a cell-based modeling context.
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
(2024)
Article
Biology
Haruto Tomizuka, Yuuya Tachiki
Summary: Batesian mimicry is a strategy in which palatable prey species resemble unpalatable prey species to avoid predation. The evolution of this mimicry plays a crucial role in protecting the unpalatable species from extinction.
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
(2024)
Article
Biology
Jason W. Olejarz, Martin A. Nowak
Summary: Gene drive technology shows potential for population control, but its release may have unpredictable consequences. The study suggests that the failure of suppression is a natural outcome, and there are complex dynamics among wild populations.
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
(2024)
Article
Biology
Hamid Ravaee, Mohammad Hossein Manshaei, Mehran Safayani, Javad Salimi Sartakhti
Summary: Gene expression analysis is valuable for cancer classification and phenotype identification. IP3G, based on Generative Adversarial Networks, enhances gene expression data and discovers phenotypes in an unsupervised manner. By converting gene expression profiles into images and utilizing IP3G, new phenotype profiles can be generated, improving classification accuracy.
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
(2024)
Article
Biology
Beatrix Rahnsch, Leila Taghizadeh
Summary: This study forecasts the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany using a network-based inference method and compares it with other approaches. The results show that the network-inference based approach outperforms other methods in short-to mid-term predictions, even with limited information about the new disease. Furthermore, predictions based on the estimation of the reproduction number in Germany can yield more reliable results with increasing data availability, but still cannot surpass the network-inference based algorithm.
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
(2024)
Article
Biology
Rongsheng Huang, Qiaojun Situ, Jinzhi Lei
Summary: Maintaining tissue homeostasis requires appropriate regulation of stem cell differentiation. Random inheritance of epigenetic states plays a pivotal role in stem cell differentiation. This computational model provides valuable insights into the intricate mechanism governing stem cell differentiation and cell reprogramming, offering a promising path for enhancing the field of regenerative medicine.
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
(2024)
Article
Biology
Patrick Vincent N. Lubenia, Eduardo R. Mendoza, Angelyn R. Lao
Summary: This study compares insulin signaling in healthy and type 2 diabetes states using reaction network analysis. The results show similarities and differences between the two conditions, providing insights into the mechanisms of insulin resistance, including the involvement of other complexes, less restrictive interplay between species, and loss of concentration robustness in GLUT4.
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
(2024)
Article
Biology
Nuverah Mohsin, Heiko Enderling, Renee Brady-Nicholls, Mohammad U. Zahid
Summary: Mathematical modeling is crucial in understanding radiobiology and designing treatment approaches in radiotherapy for cancer. This study compares three tumor volume dynamics models and analyzes the implications of model selection. A new metric, the point of maximum reduction of tumor volume (MRV), is introduced to quantify the impact of radiotherapy. The results emphasize the importance of caution in selecting models of response to radiotherapy due to the artifacts imposed by each model.
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
(2024)
Article
Biology
Armindo Salvador
Summary: Michael Savageau's Biochemical Systems Analysis papers have had a significant impact on Systems Biology, generating core concepts and tools. This article provides a brief summary of these papers and discusses the most relevant developments in Biochemical Systems Theory since their publication.
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
(2024)