| 1. |
- Brose, Ulrich, et al.
(författare)
-
Predicting the consequences of species lossusing size-structured biodiversity approaches
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Biological Reviews. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1464-7931 .- 1469-185X. ; 92:2, s. 684-697
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding the consequences of species loss in complex ecological communities is one of the great challenges in current biodiversity research. For a long time, this topic has been addressed by traditional biodiversity experiments. Most of these approaches treat species as trait-free, taxonomic units characterizing communities only by species number without accounting for species traits. However, extinctions do not occur at random as there is a clear correlation between extinction risk and species traits. In this review, we assume that large species will be most threatened by extinction and use novel allometric and size-spectrum concepts that include body mass as a primary species trait at the levels of populations and individuals, respectively, to re-assess three classic debates on the relationships between biodiversity and (i) food-web structural complexity, (ii) community dynamic stability, and (iii) ecosystem functioning. Contrasting current expectations, size-structured approaches suggest that the loss of large species, that typically exploit most resource species, may lead to future food webs that are less interwoven and more structured by chains of interactions and compartments. The disruption of natural body-mass distributions maintaining food-web stability may trigger avalanches of secondary extinctions and strong trophic cascades with expected knock-on effects on the functionality of the ecosystems. Therefore, we argue that it is crucial to take into account body size as a species trait when analysing the consequences of biodiversity loss for natural ecosystems. Applying size-structured approaches provides an integrative ecological concept that enables a better understanding of each species' unique role across communities and the causes and consequences of biodiversity loss.
|
|
| 2. |
- Griffiths, Jennifer R., et al.
(författare)
-
The importance of benthic-pelagic coupling for marine ecosystem functioning in a changing world
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 23:6, s. 2179-2196
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Benthic-pelagic coupling is manifested as the exchange of energy, mass, or nutrients between benthic and pelagic habitats. It plays a prominent role in aquatic ecosystems, and it is crucial to functions from nutrient cycling to energy transfer in food webs. Coastal and estuarine ecosystem structure and function are strongly affected by anthropogenic pressures; however, there are large gaps in our understanding of the responses of inorganic nutrient and organic matter fluxes between benthic habitats and the water column. We illustrate the varied nature of physical and biological benthic-pelagic coupling processes and their potential sensitivity to three anthropogenic pressures - climate change, nutrient loading, and fishing - using the Baltic Sea as a case study and summarize current knowledge on the exchange of inorganic nutrients and organic material between habitats. Traditionally measured benthic-pelagic coupling processes (e.g., nutrient exchange and sedimentation of organic material) are to some extent quantifiable, but the magnitude and variability of biological processes are rarely assessed, preventing quantitative comparisons. Changing oxygen conditions will continue to have widespread effects on the processes that govern inorganic and organic matter exchange among habitats while climate change and nutrient load reductions may have large effects on organic matter sedimentation. Many biological processes (predation, bioturbation) are expected to be sensitive to anthropogenic drivers, but the outcomes for ecosystem function are largely unknown. We emphasize how improved empirical and experimental understanding of benthic-pelagic coupling processes and their variability are necessary to inform models that can quantify the feedbacks among processes and ecosystem responses to a changing world.
|
|
| 3. |
- Freischmidt, Axel, et al.
(författare)
-
Haploinsufficiency of TBK1 causes familial ALS and fronto-temporal dementia
- 2015
-
Ingår i: Nature Neuroscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1097-6256 .- 1546-1726. ; 18:5, s. 631-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a genetically heterogeneous neurodegenerative syndrome hallmarked by adult-onset loss of motor neurons. We performed exome sequencing of 252 familial ALS (fALS) and 827 control individuals. Gene-based rare variant analysis identified an exome-wide significant enrichment of eight loss-of-function (LoF) mutations in TBK1 (encoding TANK-binding kinase 1) in 13 fALS pedigrees. No enrichment of LoF mutations was observed in a targeted mutation screen of 1,010 sporadic ALS and 650 additional control individuals. Linkage analysis in four families gave an aggregate LOD score of 4.6. In vitro experiments confirmed the loss of expression of TBK1 LoF mutant alleles, or loss of interaction of the C-terminal TBK1 coiled-coil domain (CCD2) mutants with the TBK1 adaptor protein optineurin, which has been shown to be involved in ALS pathogenesis. We conclude that haploinsufficiency of TBK1 causes ALS and fronto-temporal dementia.
|
|
| 4. |
- Yletyinen, Johanna, et al.
(författare)
-
Regime shifts in marine communities : a complex systems perspective on food web dynamics
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 0962-8452 .- 1471-2954. ; 283:1825
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Species composition and habitats are changing at unprecedented rates in the world's oceans, potentially causing entire food webs to shift to structurally and functionally different regimes. Despite the severity of these regime shifts, elucidating the precise nature of their underlying processes has remained difficult. We address this challenge with a new analytic approach to detect and assess the relative strength of different driving processes in food webs. Our study draws on complexity theory, and integrates the network-centric exponential random graph modelling (ERGM) framework developed within the social sciences with community ecology. In contrast to previous research, this approach makes clear assumptions of direction of causality and accommodates a dynamic perspective on the emergence of food webs. We apply our approach to analysing food webs of the Baltic Sea before and after a previously reported regime shift. Our results show that the dominant food web processes have remained largely the same, although we detect changes in their magnitudes. The results indicate that the reported regime shift may not be a system-wide shift, but instead involve a limited number of species. Our study emphasizes the importance of community-wide analysis on marine regime shifts and introduces a novel approach to examine food webs.
|
|
