scholarly journals Network structure of vertebrate scavenger assemblages at the global scale: drivers and ecosystem functioning implications

Ecography ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (8) ◽  
pp. 1143-1155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Sebastián‐González ◽  
Zebensui Morales‐Reyes ◽  
Francisco Botella ◽  
Lara Naves‐Alegre ◽  
Juan M. Pérez‐García ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Network Structure ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Global Scale

scholarly journals Network structure of vertebrate scavenger assemblages at the global scale: drivers and ecosystem functioning implications

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Sebastián‐González ◽  
Zebensui Morales‐Reyes ◽  
Francisco Botella ◽  
Lara Naves‐Alegre ◽  
Juan M Pérez‐García ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Network Structure ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Global Scale

No description supplied

scholarly journals Network structure of vertebrate scavenger assemblages at the global scale: drivers and ecosystem functioning implications

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Sebastián‐González ◽  
Zebensui Morales‐Reyes ◽  
Francisco Botella ◽  
Lara Naves‐Alegre ◽  
Juan M Pérez‐García ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Network Structure ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Global Scale

No description supplied

scholarly journals Global‐scale characterization of turning points in arid and semi‐arid ecosystem functioning

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 1230-1245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulo N. Bernardino ◽  
Wanda De Keersmaecker ◽  
Rasmus Fensholt ◽  
Jan Verbesselt ◽  
Ben Somers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Arid Ecosystem ◽  
Scale Characterization ◽  
Semi Arid

scholarly journals Ecosystem responses to exotic earthworm invasion in northern North American forests

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nico Eisenhauer ◽  
Olga Ferlian ◽  
Dylan Craven ◽  
Jes Hines ◽  
Malte Jochum
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Soil Fauna ◽  
Ecosystem Processes ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Ecosystem Responses ◽  
Earthworm Invasion ◽  
Exotic Earthworms ◽  
Meta Analyses ◽  
Gains And Losses

Earth is experiencing a substantial loss of biodiversity at the global scale, while both species gains and losses are occurring at local and regional scales. The influence of these nonrandom changes in species distributions could profoundly affect the functioning of ecosystems and the essential services that they provide. However, few experimental tests have been conducted examining the influence of species invasions on ecosystem functioning. Even fewer have been conducted using invasive ecosystem engineers, which can have disproportionately strong influence on native ecosystems relative to their own biomass. The invasion of exotic earthworms is a prime example of an ecosystem engineer that is influencing many ecosystems around the world. In particular, European earthworm invasions of northern North American forests cause simultaneous species gains and losses with significant consequences for essential ecosystem processes like nutrient cycling and crucial services to humanity like soil erosion control and carbon sequestration. Exotic earthworms are expected to select for specific traits in communities of soil microorganisms (fast-growing bacteria species), soil fauna (promoting the bacterial energy channel), and plants (graminoids) through direct and indirect effects. This will accelerate some ecosystem processes and decelerate others, fundamentally altering how invaded forests function. This project aims to investigate ecosystem responses of northern North American forests to earthworm invasion. Using a novel, synthetic combination of field observations, field experiments, lab experiments, and meta-analyses, the proposed work will be the first systematic examination of earthworm effects on (1) plant communities and (2) soil food webs and processes. Further, (3) effects of a changing climate (warming and reduced summer precipitation) on earthworm performance will be investigated in a unique field experiment designed to predict the future spread and consequences of earthworm invasion in North America. By assessing the soil chemical and physical properties as well as the taxonomic (e.g., by the latest next-generation sequencing techniques) and functional composition of plant, soil microbial and animal communities and the processes they drive in four forests, work packages I-III take complementary approaches to derive a comprehensive and generalizable picture of how ecosystems change in response to earthworm invasion. Finally, in work package IV, meta-analyses will be used to integrate the information from work packages I-III and existing literature to investigate if earthworms cause invasion waves, invasion meltdowns, habitat homogenization, and ecosystem state shifts. Global data will be synthesized to test if the relative magnitude of effects differs from place to place depending on the functional dissimilarity between native soil fauna and exotic earthworms. Moving from local to global scale, the present proposal examines the influence of earthworm invasions on biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships from an aboveground–belowground perspective in natural settings. This approach is highly innovative as it utilizes the invasion by exotic earthworms as an exciting model system that links invasion biology with trait-based community ecology, global change research, and ecosystem ecology, pioneering a new generation of biodiversity–ecosystem functioning research.

scholarly journals Global-scale mapping of changes in ecosystem functioning from earth observation-based trends in total and recurrent vegetation

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (9) ◽  
pp. 1003-1017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasmus Fensholt ◽  
Stéphanie Horion ◽  
Torbern Tagesson ◽  
Andrea Ehammer ◽  
Eva Ivits ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Earth Observation

scholarly journals Deep-sea ecosystem: a world of positive biodiversity – ecosystem functioning relationships?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Baldrighi ◽  
Donato Giovannelli ◽  
Giuseppe d’Errico ◽  
Marc Lavaleye ◽  
Elena Manini
Keyword(s):  
Functional Diversity ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Structural Diversity ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Community Services ◽  
Biodiversity Crisis ◽  
Macrofaunal Species ◽  
Benthic Ecosystems

Abstract. The global scale of the biodiversity crisis has stimulated research on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) in several ecosystems of the world. Even though the deep-sea seafloor is the largest biome on Earth, BEF studies in deep-sea benthic ecosystems are scarce. In addition, the few recent studies, mostly focus on meiobenthic nematodes, report quite different results spanning from a very clear positive relationship to none at all. If deep-sea BEF relationships are indeed so variable or have a more common nature is not established. In this first BEF study of deep-sea macrobenthic fauna, we investigated the structural and functional diversity of macrofauna assemblages at three depths (1200, 1900 and 3000 m) in seven different open slope systems in the NE Atlantic Ocean (n = 1) and Western (n = 3) and Central (n = 3) Mediterranean Sea. The results demonstrate a positive relationship between deep-sea macrobenthic diversity and ecosystem function, with some variability in its strength between slope areas and in relation to the spatial scale of investigation and environmental conditions. The macrofauna functional diversity did not appear to be more effective than structural diversity in influencing ecosystem processes. Rare macrofaunal species were seen to have a negligible effect on BEF relationship, suggesting a high ecological redundancy and a small role of rare species in providing community services.

scholarly journals Empirically Derived Sensitivity of Vegetation to Climate across Global Gradients of Temperature and Precipitation

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (15) ◽  
pp. 5835-5849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory R. Quetin ◽  
Abigail L. S. Swann
Keyword(s):  
Water Demand ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Atmospheric Water ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Climate Interactions ◽  
Climate Space

The natural composition of terrestrial ecosystems can be shaped by climate to take advantage of local environmental conditions. Ecosystem functioning (e.g., interaction between photosynthesis and temperature) can also acclimate to different climatological states. The combination of these two factors thus determines ecological–climate interactions. A global empirical map of the sensitivity of vegetation to climate is derived using the response of satellite-observed greenness to interannual variations in temperature and precipitation. Mechanisms constraining ecosystem functioning are inferred by analyzing how the sensitivity of vegetation to climate varies across climate space. Analysis yields empirical evidence for multiple physical and biological mediators of the sensitivity of vegetation to climate at large spatial scales. In hot and wet locations, vegetation is greener in warmer years despite temperatures likely exceeding thermally optimum conditions. However, sunlight generally increases during warmer years, suggesting that the increased stress from higher atmospheric water demand is offset by higher rates of photosynthesis. The sensitivity of vegetation transitions in sign (greener when warmer or drier to greener when cooler or wetter) along an emergent line in climate space with a slope of about 59 mm yr−1 °C−1, twice as steep as contours of aridity. The mismatch between these slopes is evidence at a global scale of the limitation of both water supply due to inefficiencies in plant access to rainfall and plant physiological responses to atmospheric water demand. This empirical pattern can provide a functional constraint for process-based models, helping to improve predictions of the global-scale response of vegetation to a changing climate.

scholarly journals The scaling structure of the global road network

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
pp. 170590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuele Strano ◽  
Andrea Giometto ◽  
Saray Shai ◽  
Enrico Bertuzzo ◽  
Peter J. Mucha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Network Structure ◽  
Road Network ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Self Organized ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Major Increase ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Difference

Because of increasing global urbanization and its immediate consequences, including changes in patterns of food demand, circulation and land use, the next century will witness a major increase in the extent of paved roads built worldwide. To model the effects of this increase, it is crucial to understand whether possible self-organized patterns are inherent in the global road network structure. Here, we use the largest updated database comprising all major roads on the Earth, together with global urban and cropland inventories, to suggest that road length distributions within croplands are indistinguishable from urban ones, once rescaled to account for the difference in mean road length. Such similarity extends to road length distributions within urban or agricultural domains of a given area. We find two distinct regimes for the scaling of the mean road length with the associated area, holding in general at small and at large values of the latter. In suitably large urban and cropland domains, we find that mean and total road lengths increase linearly with their domain area, differently from earlier suggestions. Scaling regimes suggest that simple and universal mechanisms regulate urban and cropland road expansion at the global scale. As such, our findings bear implications for global road infrastructure growth based on land-use change and for planning policies sustaining urban expansions.

scholarly journals Virus decomposition provides an important contribution to benthic deep-sea ecosystem functioning

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (16) ◽  
pp. E2014-E2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Dell’Anno ◽  
Cinzia Corinaldesi ◽  
Roberto Danovaro
Keyword(s):  
Deep Sea ◽  
Organic Material ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Organic Detritus ◽  
Viral Origin ◽  
Viral Capsids ◽  
Viral Particles ◽  
Deep Sea Sediments ◽  
Extracellular Enzymatic Activities

Viruses are key biological agents of prokaryotic mortality in the world oceans, particularly in deep-sea ecosystems where nearly all of the prokaryotic C production is transformed into organic detritus. However, the extent to which the decomposition of viral particles (i.e., organic material of viral origin) influences the functioning of benthic deep-sea ecosystems remains completely unknown. Here, using various independent approaches, we show that in deep-sea sediments an important fraction of viruses, once they are released by cell lysis, undergo fast decomposition. Virus decomposition rates in deep-sea sediments are high even at abyssal depths and are controlled primarily by the extracellular enzymatic activities that hydrolyze the proteins of the viral capsids. We estimate that on a global scale the decomposition of benthic viruses releases ∼37–50 megatons of C per year and thus represents an important source of labile organic compounds in deep-sea ecosystems. Organic material released from decomposed viruses is equivalent to 3 ± 1%, 6 ± 2%, and 12 ± 3% of the input of photosynthetically produced C, N, and P supplied through particles sinking to bathyal/abyssal sediments. Our data indicate that the decomposition of viruses provides an important, previously ignored contribution to deep-sea ecosystem functioning and has an important role in nutrient cycling within the largest ecosystem of the biosphere.

Global-scale characterization of turning points in arid and semi-arid ecosystems functioning

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulo Bernardino ◽  
Wanda De Keersmaecker ◽  
Rasmus Fensholt ◽  
Jan Verbesselt ◽  
Ben Somers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Arid Ecosystems ◽  
Ancillary Data ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Scale Characterization

<p>Ecosystems in drylands are highly susceptible to changes in their way of functioning due to extreme and prolonged droughts or anthropogenic perturbation. Long-standing pressure, from climate or human action, may result in severe alterations in their dynamics. Moreover, changes in dryland ecosystems functioning can take place abruptly (Horion et al., 2016). Such abrupt changes may have severe ecological and economic consequences, disturbing the livelihood of drylands inhabitants and causing increased poverty and food insecurity. Considering that drylands cover 40% of Earth’s land surface and are home to around one-third of the human population, detecting and characterizing hotspots of abrupt changes in ecosystem functioning (here called turning points) becomes even more crucial.</p><p>BFAST, a time series segmentation technique, was used to detect breakpoints in time series (1982-2015) of rain-use efficiency. An abrupt change in rain-use efficiency time series points towards a significant change in the way an ecosystem responds to precipitation, allowing the study of turning points in ecosystem functioning in both natural and anthropogenic landscapes. Moreover, we here proposed a new typology to characterize turning points in ecosystem functioning, which takes into account the trend in ecosystem functioning before and after the turning point, as well as differences in the rate of change. Case studies were used to evaluate the performance of the new typology. Finally, ancillary data on population density and drought were used to have some first insights about the potential determinants of hotspots of turning point occurrence.</p><p>Our results showed that 13.6% of global drylands presented a turning point in ecosystem functioning between 1982 and 2015. Hotspots of turning point occurrence were observed in North America (where 62.6% of the turning points were characterized by a decreasing trend in ecosystem functioning), the Sahel, Central Asia, and Australia. The last three hotspot regions were mainly characterized by a positive trend in ecosystem functioning after the turning point. The ancillary data pointed to an influence of both droughts and human action on turning point occurrence in North America, while in Asia and Australia turning point occurrence was higher in areas with higher anthropogenic pressure. In the grasslands of the Sahel, turning points were potentially related to drought. </p><p>By detecting where and when hotspots of turning points occurred in recent decades, and by characterizing the trends in ecosystem functioning before and after the turning points, we advanced towards better supporting decision making related to ecosystems conservation and management in drylands. Moreover, we provided first insights about the drivers of ecosystem functioning change in hotspots of turning point occurrence in global drylands (Bernardino et al., 2019).</p><p> </p><p><strong>References:</strong></p><p>Bernardino PN, De Keersmaecker W, Fensholt R, Verbesselt J, Somers B, Horion S (2019) Global-scale characterization of turning points in arid and semi-arid ecosystems functioning. Manuscript submitted for publication.</p><p>Horion S, Prishchepov A V., Verbesselt J, de Beurs K, Tagesson T, Fensholt R (2016) Revealing turning points in ecosystem functioning over the Northern Eurasian agricultural frontier. Global change biology, <strong>22</strong>, 2801–2817.</p>

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