| 1. |
- Gallou, Arnaud, et al.
(författare)
-
Diurnal temperature range as a key predictor of plants' elevation ranges globally
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Nature Communications. - 2041-1723. ; 14:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A prominent hypothesis in ecology is that larger species ranges are found in more variable climates because species develop broader environmental tolerances, predicting a positive range size-temperature variability relationship. However, this overlooks the extreme temperatures that variable climates impose on species, with upper or lower thermal limits more likely to be exceeded. Accordingly, we propose the 'temperature range squeeze' hypothesis, predicting a negative range size-temperature variability relationship. We test these contrasting predictions by relating 88,000 elevation range sizes of vascular plants in 44 mountains to short- and long-term temperature variation. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that species' range size is negatively correlated with diurnal temperature range. Accurate predictions of short-term temperature variation will become increasingly important for extinction risk assessment in the future. This study relates 88,000 elevation range sizes of vascular plants in 44 mountains to short-term and long-term temperature variation. The authors finding of decreasing elevation range sizes with greater diurnal temperature range supports a novel biodiversity hypothesis and indicates increased extinction risk of continental species.
|
|
| 2. |
- Carsten, Hobohm, et al.
(författare)
-
Land Use Change and the Future of Biodiversity
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Perspectives for Biodiversity and Ecosystems. - Cham : Springer. - 2214-2827 .- 2214-2835. - 9783030577094 ; , s. 451-483
-
Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This synthesis report is a meta-analysis of perspectives for biodiversity and ecosystems, with a strong focus on human impacts on the environment, and a work order to enable and manage the protection, survival and evolution of all species on Earth. The goal is to protect nature without any further species loss (Zero Extinction). With this report, we assess alarming signals from the environment; determine the needs of threatened biota and the required actions to manage and protect landscapes and ecosystems; and identify some inescapable tendencies, challenges but also possibilities. The story of humans on Earth is at a critical juncture. Human behaviour is inherently dependent on physical and societal relations, including orientation and positioning within the physical environment. There is no single cultural benefit that is independent of provisioning through ecosystem services. Humans are part of the environment, acquire all needs from it and, as such, depend on its integrity and management for life and well-being. Moreover, if human impacts to the environment continue to increase the risk of rebound effects impacting human life and health will increase as well. Whenever a biome, ecosystem, habitat or species is heavily impacted or threatened with irreversible transformation or extinction, prevailing environmental conditions are relevant and should be observed, analysed and remedied as necessary and where possible. Ecology examines the evolutionary, historical and more recent interplay between biological life and the abiotic environment, while the role of social science and the humanities is to question the physical and social landscape, and how and why it should be protected or influenced, e.g. by nature conservation measures under political and economic, ethical and legal considerations. Thus, for all inter-relationships between natural and sociocultural processes, a joint venture in the form of social-ecological thinking is necessary to combine natural sciences and the humanities. With this contribution, we combine ecological knowledge with social science knowledge (s.l.) through the participation of scientists of many different disciplines. We analyse history and current processes to assess risks, threats and possibilities, and call for an array of regulations and measures that can contribute to halting of biodiversity loss and that assist in achieving a sustainable future. Regulations comprise creativity, cultural incentives, social norms, environmental education and economic investments—such as payments for sustainable agriculture, forestry, and fishery; investments in water, soil and air purity; and much clearer and stronger legal restrictions and consequences around waste streams and environmental degradation. Moreover, a gradual change from profit-oriented economies in the short-run to environmentally-sensitive policies that include systematic environmental programmes in the long term might help to decrease pressure on ecosystems and biota. Such economics might also include the real costs of consumerism, including the impacts of particular products on the environment and on human health. The greatest hurdle for the continued existence of many critically endangered species is the impact of widespread anthropogenic-driven change in the usage of water, air and land, and industry intensification in agriculture, aquaculture, forestry, urbanisation, transportation and mining sectors. However, there is not one simple solution to solve these issues. We conclude that many of the current developments have to be adjusted or gradually altered in a step-wise manner, especially with respect to existing sociocultural behaviours. Therefore, various concepts, decisions and measures should be discussed and implemented at all scales from local to supranational and among researchers, practitioners and politicians.
|
|
| 3. |
- Dawson, Michael N., et al.
(författare)
-
A second horizon scan of biogeography: Golden ages, Midas touches, and the Red Queen
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Frontiers of Biogeography. - : University of California. - 1948-6596. ; 8:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Are we entering a new 'Golden Age' of biogeography, with continued development of infrastructure and ideas? We highlight recent developments, and the challenges and opportunities they bring, in light of the snapshot provided by the 7th biennial meeting of the International Biogeography Society (IBS 2015). We summarize themes in and across 15 symposia using narrative analysis and word clouds, which we complement with recent publication trends and 'research fronts'. We find that biogeography is still strongly defined by core sub-disciplines that reflect its origins in botanical, zoological (particularly bird and mammal), and geographic (e.g., island, montane) studies of the 1800s. That core is being enriched by large datasets (e.g. of environmental variables, 'omics', species' occurrences, traits) and new techniques (e.g., advances in genetics, remote sensing, modeling) that promote studies with increasing detail and at increasing scales; disciplinary breadth is being diversified (e.g., by developments in paleobiogeography and microbiology) and integrated through the transfer of approaches and sharing of theory (e.g., spatial modeling and phylogenetics in evolutionary-ecological contexts). Yet some subdisciplines remain on the fringe (e.g., marine biogeography, deep-time paleobiogeography), new horizons and new theory may be overshadowed by popular techniques (e.g., species distribution modelling), and hypotheses, data, and analyses may each be wanting. Trends in publication suggest a shift away from traditional biogeography journals to multidisciplinary or open access journals. Thus, there are currently many opportunities and challenges as biogeography increasingly addresses human impacts on, and stewardship of, the planet (e.g., Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). As in the past, biogeographers doubtless will continue to be engaged by new data and methods in exploring the nexus between biology and geography for decades into the future. But golden ages come and go, and they need not touch every domain in a discipline nor affect subdisciplines at the same time; moreover, what appears to be a Golden Age may sometimes have an undesirable 'Midas touch'. Contexts within and outwith biogeography-e.g., methods, knowledge, climate, biodiversity, politics-are continually changing, and at times it can be challenging to establish or maintain relevance. In so many races with the Red Queen, we suggest that biogeography will enjoy greatest success if we also increasingly engage with the epistemology of our discipline.
|
|
| 4. |
- Irl, Severin D. H., et al.
(författare)
-
Burned and devoured-Introduced herbivores, fire, and the endemic flora of the high-elevation ecosystem on La Palma, Canary Islands
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine research. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1523-0430 .- 1938-4246. ; 46:4, s. 859-869
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Novel disturbance regimes (e.g., introduced herbivores and fire) are among the major drivers of degradation in island ecosystems. High-elevation ecosystems (HEEs) on islands might be especially vulnerable to these disturbances due to high endemism. Here, data from an 11-year exclosure experiment in the HEE of La Palma (Canary Islands) are presented where mammalian herbivores have been introduced. We investigate the combined effect of herbivory and fire on total species richness, seedling richness, and seedling establishment on the whole system and a subset of highly endangered species (target species). Total species richness, seedling species richness, and seedling establishment decreased with herbivory. Five out of eight target species were exclusively found inside the exclosures indicating the negative impact of introduced herbivores on endemic high elevation flora. Target species were generally affected more negatively by introduced herbivores and were subject to significantly higher browsing pressure, probably owing to their lack of defense strategies. A natural wildfire that occurred six years before data sampling substantially increased total species richness and seedling richness in both herbivory exclosure and reference conditions. We conclude that species composition of the HEE has been severely altered by the introduction of non-native herbivores, even though fire seems to have a positive effect on this system.
|
|
| 5. |
- Kattge, Jens, et al.
(författare)
-
TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 26:1, s. 119-188
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives.
|
|
| 6. |
- Komatsu, Kimberly J., et al.
(författare)
-
Global change effects on plant communities are magnified by time and the number of global change factors imposed
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 116:36, s. 17867-17873
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Accurate prediction of community responses to global change drivers (GCDs) is critical given the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem services. There is consensus that human activities are driving species extinctions at the global scale, but debate remains over whether GCDs are systematically altering local communities worldwide. Across 105 experiments that included over 400 experimental manipulations, we found evidence for a lagged response of herbaceous plant communities to GCDs caused by shifts in the identities and relative abundances of species, often without a corresponding difference in species richness. These results provide evidence that community responses are pervasive across a wide variety of GCDs on long-term temporal scales and that these responses increase in strength when multiple GCDs are simultaneously imposed.Global change drivers (GCDs) are expected to alter community structure and consequently, the services that ecosystems provide. Yet, few experimental investigations have examined effects of GCDs on plant community structure across multiple ecosystem types, and those that do exist present conflicting patterns. In an unprecedented global synthesis of over 100 experiments that manipulated factors linked to GCDs, we show that herbaceous plant community responses depend on experimental manipulation length and number of factors manipulated. We found that plant communities are fairly resistant to experimentally manipulated GCDs in the short term (<10 y). In contrast, long-term (≥10 y) experiments show increasing community divergence of treatments from control conditions. Surprisingly, these community responses occurred with similar frequency across the GCD types manipulated in our database. However, community responses were more common when 3 or more GCDs were simultaneously manipulated, suggesting the emergence of additive or synergistic effects of multiple drivers, particularly over long time periods. In half of the cases, GCD manipulations caused a difference in community composition without a corresponding species richness difference, indicating that species reordering or replacement is an important mechanism of community responses to GCDs and should be given greater consideration when examining consequences of GCDs for the biodiversity–ecosystem function relationship. Human activities are currently driving unparalleled global changes worldwide. Our analyses provide the most comprehensive evidence to date that these human activities may have widespread impacts on plant community composition globally, which will increase in frequency over time and be greater in areas where communities face multiple GCDs simultaneously.
|
|
| 7. |
- Walentowitz, Anna, et al.
(författare)
-
Long-term trajectories of non-native vegetation on islands globally
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Ecology Letters. - : Wiley. - 1461-023X .- 1461-0248. ; 26:5, s. 729-741
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Human-mediated changes in island vegetation are, among others, largely caused by the introduction and establishment of non-native species. However, data on past changes in non-native plant species abundance that predate historical documentation and censuses are scarce. Islands are among the few places where we can track human arrival in natural systems allowing us to reveal changes in vegetation dynamics with the arrival of non-native species. We matched fossil pollen data with botanical status information (native, non-native), and quantified the timing, trajectories and magnitude of non-native plant vegetational change on 29 islands over the past 5000 years. We recorded a proportional increase in pollen of non-native plant taxa within the last 1000 years. Individual island trajectories are context-dependent and linked to island settlement histories. Our data show that non-native plant introductions have a longer and more dynamic history than is generally recognized, with critical implications for biodiversity baselines and invasion biology.
|
|
