Plant diversity maintains multiple soil functions in future environments
- Leipzig University, Germany
- University of Minnesota, United States
- Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
- Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Abstract
Biodiversity increases ecosystem functions underpinning a suite of services valued by society, including services provided by soils. To test whether, and how, future environments alter the relationship between biodiversity and multiple ecosystem functions, we measured grassland plant diversity effects on single soil functions and ecosystem multifunctionality, and compared relationships in four environments: ambient conditions, elevated atmospheric CO2, enriched N supply, and elevated CO2 and N in combination. Our results showed that plant diversity increased three out of four soil functions and, consequently, ecosystem multifunctionality. Remarkably, biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships were similarly significant under current and future environmental conditions, yet weaker with enriched N supply. Structural equation models revealed that plant diversity enhanced ecosystem multifunctionality by increasing plant community functional diversity, and the even provision of multiple functions. Conserving local plant diversity is therefore a robust strategy to maintain multiple valuable ecosystem services in both present and future environmental conditions.
Data availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are available in Supplementary File 3.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Ei 862/2; FZT 118)
- Nico Eisenhauer
- Jes Hines
- Alfred Lochner
European Research Council (ERC award no 677232)
- Nico Eisenhauer
National Science Foundation (DEB-1234162)
- Peter B Reich
National Science Foundation (DEB-1120064)
- Peter B Reich
National Science Foundation (DEB-1242531)
- Peter B Reich
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Bernhard Schmid, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Version history
- Received: August 18, 2018
- Accepted: November 27, 2018
- Accepted Manuscript published: November 28, 2018 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: December 17, 2018 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2018, Eisenhauer et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 4,390
- views
-
- 760
- downloads
-
- 61
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Plant diversity maintains multiple soil functions in future environments
eLife 7:e41228.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.41228
Further reading
-
- Ecology
The success of an organism depends on the molecular and ecological adaptations that promote its beneficial fitness. Parasitoids are valuable biocontrol agents for successfully managing agricultural pests, and they have evolved diversified strategies to adapt to both the physiological condition of hosts and the competition of other parasitoids. Here, we deconstructed the parasitic strategies in a highly successful parasitoid, Trichopria drosophilae, which parasitizes a broad range of Drosophila hosts, including the globally invasive species D. suzukii. We found that T. drosophilae had developed specialized venom proteins that arrest host development to obtain more nutrients via secreting tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs), as well as a unique type of cell—teratocytes—that digest host tissues for feeding by releasing trypsin proteins. In addition to the molecular adaptations that optimize nutritional uptake, this pupal parasitoid has evolved ecologically adaptive strategies including the conditional tolerance of intraspecific competition to enhance parasitic success in older hosts and the obligate avoidance of interspecific competition with larval parasitoids. Our study not only demystifies how parasitoids weaponize themselves to colonize formidable hosts but also provided empirical evidence of the intricate coordination between the molecular and ecological adaptations that drive evolutionary success.
-
- Ecology
Comprehensive biodiversity data is crucial for ecosystem protection. The Biome mobile app, launched in Japan, efficiently gathers species observations from the public using species identification algorithms and gamification elements. The app has amassed >6 million observations since 2019. Nonetheless, community-sourced data may exhibit spatial and taxonomic biases. Species distribution models (SDMs) estimate species distribution while accommodating such bias. Here, we investigated the quality of Biome data and its impact on SDM performance. Species identification accuracy exceeds 95% for birds, reptiles, mammals, and amphibians, but seed plants, molluscs, and fishes scored below 90%. Our SDMs for 132 terrestrial plants and animals across Japan revealed that incorporating Biome data into traditional survey data improved accuracy. For endangered species, traditional survey data required >2000 records for accurate models (Boyce index ≥ 0.9), while blending the two data sources reduced this to around 300. The uniform coverage of urban-natural gradients by Biome data, compared to traditional data biased towards natural areas, may explain this improvement. Combining multiple data sources better estimates species distributions, aiding in protected area designation and ecosystem service assessment. Establishing a platform for accumulating community-sourced distribution data will contribute to conserving and monitoring natural ecosystems.
