Article
Forestry
Benedicto Vargas-Larreta, Jorge Omar Lopez-Martinez, Edgar J. Gonzalez, Jose Javier Corral-Rivas, Francisco Javier Hernandez
Summary: The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem productivity in temperate mixed-species and uneven-aged forests of northern Mexico was investigated, showing that species richness, maximum height, functional richness, functional dispersion, and RaoQ indices are related to above-ground biomass production. A hump-shaped relationship between above-ground biomass and species richness was observed, with functional diversity explaining biomass production better than classical taxonomic diversity. Community weighted mean traits, particularly maximum tree height, play a key role in explaining stand biomass accumulation in these forests. The impact of forest management on biodiversity did not change the relationship between above-ground biomass and diversity in the forests of the Sierra Madre Occidental, Mexico.
Article
Ecology
Georg Albert, Benoit Gauzens, Michel Loreau, Shaopeng Wang, Ulrich Brose
Summary: Resource-use complementarity and multi-trophic interactions interactively create diverse communities of complementary producer species, increasing their coexistence and realized complementarity. Animal-rich ecosystems with multi-trophic interactions facilitate producer coexistence by preventing competitive exclusion and increasing realized complementarity. The interdependence of food-webs and producer complementarity highlights the importance of adopting a multi-trophic perspective in understanding biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships.
Article
Microbiology
Lingyue Zhu, Yan Chen, Ruibo Sun, Jiabao Zhang, Lauren Hale, Kenneth Dumack, Stefan Geisen, Ye Deng, Yinghua Duan, Bo Zhu, Yan Li, Wenzhao Liu, Xiaoyue Wang, Bryan S. Griffiths, Michael Bonkowski, Jizhong Zhou, Bo Sun
Summary: To achieve long-term sustainability of intensive agricultural practices, understanding belowground functional stability is crucial. This study investigated how resource availability mediates soil biodiversity and potential multi-trophic interactions to control functional trait stability. The results showed that higher resource availability increased potential cross-trophic interactions, while low resource availability made stability more dependent on within trophic interactions and soil biodiversity.
Article
Biology
Jing-Ting Chen, Ming-Qiang Wang, Yi Li, Douglas Chesters, Arong Luo, Wei Zhang, Peng-Fei Guo, Shi-Kun Guo, Qing-Song Zhou, Ke-Ping Ma, Goddert von Oheimb, Matthias Kunz, Nai-Li Zhang, Xiao-Juan Liu, Helge Bruelheide, Andreas Schuldt, Chao-Dong Zhu
Summary: Human-induced biodiversity loss negatively affects ecosystem function, but the interactive effects of biodiversity change across trophic levels remain insufficiently understood. We sampled arboreal spiders and lepidopteran larvae across seasons in a subtropical tree diversity experiment, and then disentangled the links between tree diversity and arthropod predator diversity by deconstructing the pathways among multiple components of diversity (taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional) with structural equation models. Our study highlights the importance of an integrated approach based on multiple biodiversity components in understanding the consequences of biodiversity loss in multitrophic communities.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Rui Lourenco, Pedro F. Pereira, Amalia Oliveira, Joana Ribeiro-Silva, Diogo Figueiredo, Joao E. Rabaca, Antonio Mira, J. Tiago Marques
Summary: This study investigated the biocontrol potential of functional insectivorous birds in vineyards under different management intensities and landscape contexts. The results showed that vineyard plots with more trees had higher functional bird diversity, dispersion, richness, and functional diversity, indicating a greater potential for ecosystem services provided by insectivorous birds.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2021)
Review
Ecology
Thomas W. Sherry
Summary: The decline of tropical insectivorous birds involves a variety of ultimate and proximate factors that are diverse, complementary, and sometimes synergistic. Protecting these birds will require more and larger reserves, and doing so is essential.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Zhaoju Zheng, Bernhard Schmid, Yuan Zeng, Meredith C. Schuman, Dan Zhao, Michael E. Schaepman, Felix Morsdorf
Summary: Functional diversity plays a critical role in ecosystem functioning. Spatially explicit data on plant functional traits and diversity are necessary for understanding the impact of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning. This study used data from airborne laser scanning and multispectral Sentinel-2 imagery to retrieve morphological and physiological traits, which were then used to estimate functional diversity indices in a subtropical mountainous forest. The study found that functional traits were important predictors of aboveground ecosystem carbon stocks and primary productivity, highlighting the potential of remotely-sensed functional traits in assessing the relationship between trait diversity and ecosystem functioning.
REMOTE SENSING OF ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Jaron Adkins, Edd Hammill, Umarfarooq A. Abdulwahab, John P. Draper, J. Marshall Wolf, Catherine M. McClure, Adrian A. Gonzalez Ortiz, Emily A. Chavez, Trisha B. Atwood
Summary: Using random forest models, we identified the drivers of terrestrial mammal species richness within different trophic groups. Precipitation seasonality was the most important predictor of richness for all trophic groups. Basal-level resource availability, as represented by gross primary production, influenced the relative contribution of each trophic group to total species richness.
Article
Ecology
Alexander J. Forde, Ilka C. Feller, John D. Parker, Daniel S. Gruner
Summary: The top-down effects of predators and bottom-up effects of resources are crucial factors driving community structure and function. This study demonstrates the impacts of birds on arthropod densities and leaf and bud herbivory in a mangrove forest system, highlighting the importance of both top-down and bottom-up forces.
Article
Ecology
Jennifer R. A. Cahill, Thomas Merckx, Hans Van Dyck, Milton Fernandez, Erik Matthysen
Summary: The study found that larger fragments contain wider trees with relatively higher arthropod biomass, which are preferred for foraging by birds. In contrast, smaller forest fragments are not only less environmentally buffered, but also characterized by lower amounts of bark and lower densities of bark-dwelling arthropods.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Charles Thevenin, Maud Mouchet, Alexandre Robert, Christian Kerbiriou, Francois Sarrazin
Summary: Reintroduction is a popular conservation tool, but its contribution to the conservation of biodiversity at large scales remains unclear. Studies found that reintroductions of birds in Europe did not focus on functionally distinct species, while reintroductions of mammals involved more functionally distinct species than expected.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Stefano Zorzal-Almeida, Elaine C. Rodrigues Bartozek, Denise C. Bicudo
Summary: Eutrophication leads to biotic homogenization in tropical reservoirs, with an increase in total beta diversity, no change in turnover with eutrophication, but a positive relationship between nutrient enrichment and the nestedness component.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Dieison A. Moi, Gustavo Q. Romero, Pablo A. P. Antiqueira, Roger P. Mormul, Franco Teixeira de Mello, Claudia C. Bonecker
Summary: The study found that multitrophic richness had a stronger positive effect on multifunctionality than richness of single trophic groups. Removal of each single trophic group decreased the effect of multitrophic richness on multifunctionality. Larger predatory vertebrates and primary producers had stronger positive effects on multifunctionality, while the richness of basal trophic groups indirectly contributed to increasing multifunctionality through fueling large-sized predators.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Maral Bashirzadeh, Santiago Soliveres, Mohammad Farzam, Hamid Ejtehadi
Summary: The study found that nurse plants have a positive impact on the taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of alpine communities, as well as the functional and phylogenetic diversity of dryland communities. Nurse plants have the largest effects on biodiversity in moderate environmental conditions, which suggests their potential to protect biodiversity from the impacts of climate change in the future.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Nickson Erick Otieno, Jonathan Mukasi
Summary: Although the conversion of natural forest to agriculture can have negative impacts on biodiversity, the dispersal of some affected species across the forest-farmland eco-zone can promote functional connections through food-web interactions beneficial to crop production and forestry. This study in western Kenya examined the herbivory patterns of Lepidoptera, Hemiptera, and Coleoptera, as well as bird predation, within forest-adjacent farms and how these processes connect the two ecosystems for pest biocontrol. The findings highlight the potential for insectivorous birds to contribute to pest regulation and emphasize the importance of promoting landscape-scale integrated pest management for sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation.
FRONTIERS IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Xoaquin Moreira, Colleen S. Nell, Angelos Katsanis, Sergio Rasmann, Kailen A. Mooney
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Tomas Roslin, Bess Hardwick, Vojtech Novotny, William K. Petry, Nigel R. Andrew, Ashley Asmus, Isabel C. Barrio, Yves Basset, Andrea Larissa Boesing, Timothy C. Bonebrake, Erin K. Cameron, Wesley Dattilo, David A. Donoso, Pavel Drozd, Claudia L. Gray, David S. Hik, Sarah J. Hill, Tapani Hopkins, Shuyin Huang, Bonny Koane, Benita Laird-Hopkins, Liisa Laukkanen, Owen T. Lewis, Sol Milne, Isaiah Mwesige, Akihiro Nakamura, Colleen S. Nell, Elizabeth Nichols, Alena Prokurat, Katerina Sam, Niels M. Schmidt, Alison Slade, Victor Slade, Alzbeta Suchankova, Tiit Teder, Saskya van Nouhuys, Vigdis Vandvik, Anita Weissflog, Vital Zhukovich, Eleanor M. Slade
Article
Ecology
Colleen S. Nell, Maria M. Meza-Lopez, Jordan R. Croy, Annika S. Nelson, Xoaquin Moreira, Jessica D. Pratt, Kailen A. Mooney
Article
Ecology
Xoaquin Moreira, Colleen S. Nell, Maria M. Meza-Lopez, Sergio Rasmann, Kailen A. Mooney
Article
Ecology
Colleen S. Nell, Kailen A. Mooney
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Xoaquin Moreira, Luis Abdala-Roberts, Colleen S. Nell, Carla Vazquez-Gonzalez, Jessica D. Pratt, Ken Keefover-Ring, Kailen A. Mooney
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2019)
Article
Plant Sciences
Xoaquin Moreira, Luis Abdala-Roberts, Andrea Galman, Andrew W. Bartlow, Jorge C. Berny-Mier y Teran, Elisa Carrari, Felisa Covelo, Maria de la Fuente, Scott Ferrenberg, Nikolaos M. Fyllas, Yasutomo Hoshika, Steven R. Lee, Robert J. Marquis, Masahiro Nakamura, Colleen S. Nell, Mario B. Pesendorfer, Michael A. Steele, Carla Vazquez-Gonzalez, Shuang Zhang, Sergio Rasmann
JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2020)
Article
Ecology
Yanely May-Uc, Colleen S. Nell, Victor Parra-Tabla, Jorge Augusto, Luis Abdala-Roberts
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY
(2020)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Cee S. S. Nell, Riley Pratt, Jutta Burger, Kristine L. L. Preston, Kathleen K. K. Treseder, Dana Kamada, Karly Moore, Kailen A. A. Mooney
Summary: A study on the Coastal Cactus Wren in coastal southern California and Baja Mexico reveals how the composition of arthropods can affect the reproductive success of insectivorous birds, highlighting the importance of managing arthropods in bird conservation efforts.