Browsing by Subject "biodiversity"
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Item Biodiversity increases the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate extremes(Nature Publishing Group, 2015) Isbell, Forest; Craven, Dylan; Connolly, John; Loreau, Michel; Schmid, Bernhard; Beierkuhnlein, Carl; Bezemer, T. Martijn; Bonin, Catherine; Bruelheide, Helge; de Luca, Enrica; Ebeling, Anne; Griffin, John N; Guo, Qinfeng; Hautier, Yann; Hector, Andy; Jentsch, Anke; Kreyling, Jürgen; Lanta, Vojtěch; Manning, Pete; Meyer, Sebastian T; Mori, Akira S.; Naeem, Shahid; Niklaus, Pascal A; Polley, H. Wayne; Reich, Peter B; Roscher, Christiane; Seabloom, Eric W; Smith, Melinda D; Thakur, Madhav P; Tilman, David; Tracy, Benjamin F; van der Putten, Wim H; van Ruijven, Jasper; Weigelt, Alexandra; Weisser, Wolfgang W; Wilsey, Brian; Eisenhauer, NicoIt remains unclear whether biodiversity buffers ecosystems against climate extremes, which are becoming increasingly frequent worldwide. Early results suggested that the ecosystem productivity of diverse grassland plant communities was more resistant, changing less during drought, and more resilient, recovering more quickly after drought, than that of depauperate communities. However, subsequent experimental tests produced mixed results. Here we use data from 46 experiments that manipulated grassland plant diversity to test whether biodiversity provides resistance during and resilience after climate events. We show that biodiversity increased ecosystem resistance for a broad range of climate events, including wet or dry, moderate or extreme, and brief or prolonged events. Across all studies and climate events, the productivity of low-diversity communities with one or two species changed by approximately 50% during climate events, whereas that of high-diversity communities with 16-32 species was more resistant, changing by only approximately 25%. By a year after each climate event, ecosystem productivity had often fully recovered, or overshot, normal levels of productivity in both high- and low-diversity communities, leading to no detectable dependence of ecosystem resilience on biodiversity. Our results suggest that biodiversity mainly stabilizes ecosystem productivity, and productivity-dependent ecosystem services, by increasing resistance to climate events. Anthropogenic environmental changes that drive biodiversity loss thus seem likely to decrease ecosystem stability, and restoration of biodiversity to increase it, mainly by changing the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate events.Item Biodiversity simultaneously enhances the production and stability of community biomass, but the effects are independent(Ecological Society of America, 2013) Cardinale, Bradley J; Gross, Kevin; Fritschie, Keith; Flombaum, Pedro; Fox, Jeremy W; Rixen, Christian; Van Ruijven, Jasper; Reich, Peter B; Scherer-Lorenzen, Michael; Wilsey, Brian JTo predict the ecological consequences of biodiversity loss, researchers have spent much time and effort quantifying how biological variation affects the magnitude and stability of ecological processes that underlie the functioning of ecosystems. Here we add to this work by looking at how biodiversity jointly impacts two aspects of ecosystem functioning at once: (1) the production of biomass at any single point in time (biomass/area or biomass/volume), and (2) the stability of biomass production through time (the CV of changes in total community biomass through time). While it is often assumed that biodiversity simultaneously enhances both of these aspects of ecosystem functioning, the joint distribution of data describing how species richness regulates productivity and stability has yet to be quantified. Furthermore, analyses have yet to examine how diversity effects on production covary with diversity effects on stability. To overcome these two gaps, we reanalyzed the data from 34 experiments that have manipulated the richness of terrestrial plants or aquatic algae and measured how this aspect of biodiversity affects community biomass at multiple time points. Our reanalysis confirms that biodiversity does indeed simultaneously enhance both the production and stability of biomass in experimental systems, and this is broadly true for terrestrial and aquatic primary producers. However, the strength of diversity effects on biomass production is independent of diversity effects on temporal stability. The independence of effect sizes leads to two important conclusions. First, while it may be generally true that biodiversity enhances both productivity and stability, it is also true that the highest levels of productivity in a diverse community are not associated with the highest levels of stability. Thus, on average, diversity does not maximize the various aspects of ecosystem functioning we might wish to achieve in conservation and management. Second, knowing how biodiversity affects productivity gives no information about how diversity affects stability (or vice versa). Therefore, to predict the ecological changes that occur in ecosystems after extinction, we will need to develop separate mechanistic models for each independent aspect of ecosystem functioning.Item Biosurveillance with the smokey winged beetle bandit wasp: understanding buprestid populations and volunteer outcomes in Minnesota(2019-08) Hallinen, MarieBuprestid beetles can be difficult to sample due to their cryptic nature: larvae are usually wood-boring and feed under bark or within stems, and adults exhibit maturation feeding within tree canopies. There is no long-range sex pheromone identified for this family that could be exploited for sampling. In addition, currently available traps are only intermittently successful at detecting species of interest, including the invasive emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, when at low densities. One method used to sample emerald ash borer and other buprestids is biosurveillance with a native ground-nesting hunting wasp, Cerceris fumipennis Say (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae). Cerceris fumipennis hunts for a wide range of buprestids, does not sting humans, and tends to nest at easily accessible human-disturbed sites such as baseball diamonds, making it easy for non-specialists to monitor nests and collect beetles in their communities. This work utilizes C. fumipennis-collected beetles along with existing museum records to create a checklist of buprestid species in Minnesota, investigates site-level variables that may influence the number and diversity of beetles collected by C. fumipennis, and elucidates individual outcomes for citizen science volunteers who monitor nesting aggregations of C. fumipennis.Item Buckthrorn Problem.(1999) Ahrens, ElizabethItem Choices for the Future of the Hiawatha Valley.(2006) Scherer, Troy; Hiawatha Valley PartnershipItem Dynamics and Comarisons of Plant Diversity and Aboveground Carbon Storage Between Old-Growth and Second-Growth Maple-Basswood Forests in Southern Minnesota(2023) Partington, NicholasThis study investigates understory plant diversity and aboveground carbon storage in the Big Woods of southern Minnesota. Like forests worldwide, the Big Woods is losing habitat and undergoing changing disturbance regimes. These factors can negatively affect ecosystem services and fundamentally change ecosystems with time. To better understand current dynamics, we compared biodiversity and carbon storage between old-growth and second-growth forests common to the Big Woods. We surveyed plant communities and used tree diameter measurements to estimate aboveground carbon storage at several sites throughout southern Minnesota. Ordination and multivariate analysis techniques were used to compare plant communities and linear regression models analyzed effects on estimated carbon storage. Key findings show greater species richness in second-growth sites, but no significant difference in plant community structure or carbon storage between successional stages. This work highlights the change – or lack of change – in biodiversity and carbon storage that can be expected as forests age, which can be valuable to professionals managing and protecting lands with long-term goals in mind. Additionally, these results underscore the importance of considering how old-growth forests are defined, an issue that has gained substantial attention recently. Future research might study these ecosystem services along a broader range of stand ages to uncover when in succession, if at all, substantial differences in forest biodiversity and carbon storage arise.Item Exploring Collaborative Opportunities in Natural Resource Planning and Conservation.(2004) Doering, DawnItem Forest Resource Management in Southeast Minnesota(2002) Class, LeahItem Forests and Biodiversity cleaned biomass survey data 2013-2018(2021-02-12) Kothari, Shan; Montgomery, Rebecca A; Cavender-Bares, Jeannine; kotha020@umn.edu; Kothari, Shan; University of Minnesota Cavender-Bares Lab; University of Minnesota Montgomery Lab; Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science ReserveThis dataset includes annual growth survey measurements from the Forests and Biodiversity 1 (e271) experiment at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve in East Bethel, MN. The dataset also includes a script that allows users to reproduce the figures and statistics reported in the cited paper. This version of the dataset is specifically meant to support the inferences in that paper, rather than serving as the version of record. Please consult the Cedar Creek Data Catalog (https://www.cedarcreek.umn.edu/research/data) to find the authoritative version to be used for general purposes.Item Further re-analyses looking for effects of phylogenetic diversity on community biomass and stability(Wiley, 2015) Cardinale, Bradley J; Venail, Patrick; Gross, Kevin; Oakley, Todd H; Narwani, Anita; Allan, Eric; Flombaum, Pedro; Joshi, Jasmin; Reich, Peter B; Tilman, David; van Ruijven, JasperItem The global spectrum of plant form and function(2016) Díaz, Sandra; Kattge, Jens; Cornelissen, Johannes H C; Wright, Ian J; Lavorel, Sandra; Dray, Stéphane; Reu, Björn; Kleyer, Michael; Wirth, Christian; Prentice, I. Colin; Garnier, Eric; Bönisch, Gerhard; Westoby, Mark; Poorter, Hendrik; Reich, Peter B; Moles, Angela T; Dickie, John; Gillison, Andrew N; Zanne, Amy E; Chave, Jérôme; Wright, S. Joseph; Sheremet’ev, Serge N; Jactel, Hervé; Baraloto, Christopher; Cerabolini, Bruno; Pierce, Simon; Shipley, Bill; Kirkup, Donald; Casanoves, Fernando; Joswig, Julia S; Günther, Angela; Falczuk, Valeria; Rüger, Nadja; Mahecha, Miguel D; Gorné, Lucas DEarth is home to a remarkable diversity of plant forms and life histories, yet comparatively few essential trait combinations have proved evolutionarily viable in today’s terrestrial biosphere. By analysing worldwide variation in six major traits critical to growth, survival and reproduction within the largest sample of vascular plant species ever compiled, we found that occupancy of six-dimensional trait space is strongly concentrated, indicating coordination and trade-offs. Three-quarters of trait variation is captured in a two-dimensional global spectrum of plant form and function. One major dimension within this plane reflects the size of whole plants and their parts; the other represents the leaf economics spectrum, which balances leaf construction costs against growth potential. The global plant trait spectrum provides a backdrop for elucidating constraints on evolution, for functionally qualifying species and ecosystems, and for improving models that predict future vegetation based on continuous variation in plant form and function.Item Historical and contemporary biological diversity of Minnesota caddisflies: a case study of landscape-level species loss and trophic composition shift(University of Chicago Press, 2010) Houghton, David C.; Holzenthal, Ralph W.The biological diversity reflected by nearly 300,000 caddisfly specimens collected throughout Minnesota since 1985 was compared with that of 25,000 specimens recorded prior to 1950 and was analyzed based on the 5 caddisfly regions of Minnesota. In the Lake Superior, Northern, and Southeastern regions, .90% of species known historically from each region were recovered and additional species were discovered. In the Northwestern and Southern regions—the most disturbed areas of Minnesota—species recovery ranged from 60 to 70%. Historical and contemporary assemblages were similar to each other in the former 3 regions and markedly different in the latter 2. Prior to 1950, species in all trophic functional groups were widespread in all regions. A similar pattern still exists in the Lake Superior, Northern, and Southeastern regions, whereas the Northwestern and Southern regions are now dominated by filtering collectors in all sizes of lakes and streams. Over 65% of species extirpated from any region were in the long-lived families Limnephilidae and Phryganeidae, and 70% of these same species were in the shredder functional group. Almost 30% of the statewide fauna has been found from ,5 localities since 1950, suggesting a degree of imperilment on par with that of freshwater bivalves, gastropods, and fish. These observed losses of biodiversity and changes in trophic composition have probably occurred as a result of anthropogenic disturbance throughout most of the northcentral US.Item New handbook for standardised measurement of plant functional traits worldwide(CSIRO, 2013) Pérez-Harguindeguy, N; Díaz, S; Garnier, E; Lavorel, S; Poorter, H; Jaureguiberry, P; Bret-Harte, M S; Cornwell, W K; Craine, J M; Gurvich, D E; Urcelay, C; Veneklaas, E J; Reich, Peter B; Poorter, L; Wright, I J; Ray, P; Enrico, L; Pausas, J G; de Vos, A C; Buchmann, N; Funes, G; Quétier, F; Hodgson, J G; Thompson, K; Morgan, H D; ter Steege, H; van der Heijden, M G A; Sack, L; Blonder, B; Poschlod, P; Vaieretti, M V; Conti, G; Staver, A C; Aquino, S; Cornelissen, J H CPlant functional traits are the features (morphological, physiological, phenological) that represent ecological strategies and determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels and influence ecosystem properties. Variation in plant functional traits, and trait syndromes, has proven useful for tackling many important ecological questions at a range of scales, giving rise to a demand for standardised ways to measure ecologically meaningful plant traits. This line of research has been among the most fruitful avenues for understanding ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes. It also has the potential both to build a predictive set of local, regional and global relationships between plants and environment and to quantify a wide range of natural and human-driven processes, including changes in biodiversity, the impacts of species invasions, alterations in biogeochemical processes and vegetation–atmosphere interactions. The importance of these topics dictates the urgent need for more and better data, and increases the value of standardised protocols for quantifying trait variation of different species, in particular for traits with power to predict plant- and ecosystemlevel processes, and for traits that can be measured relatively easily. Updated and expanded from the widely used previous version, this handbook retains the focus on clearly presented, widely applicable, step-by-step recipes, with a minimum of text on theory, and not only includes updated methods for the traits previously covered, but also introduces many new protocols for further traits. This new handbook has a better balance between whole-plant traits, leaf traits, root and stem traits and regenerative traits, and puts particular emphasis on traits important for predicting species’ effects on key ecosystem properties.We hope this new handbook becomes a standard companion in local and global efforts to learn about the responses and impacts of different plant species with respect to environmental changes in the present, past and future.Item Phylogeny and revision of the Neotropical genus Grumichella Müller (Trichoptera: Leptoceridae), including nine new species and a key(Oxford University Press, 2016) Calor, Adolfo R.; Holzenthal, Ralph W.; Froehlich, Claudio G.The systematics of the Neotropical caddisfly genus Grumichella Müller (Leptoceridae: Grumichellinae) are reviewed. Diagnoses, descriptions and illustrations are provided for four previously described species, G. aequiunguis Flint, 1983, G. flaveola (Ulmer, 1911), G. pulchella (Banks, 1910) and G. rostrata Thienemann, 1905, and nine new species: G. blahniki sp. nov. (Peru), G. boraceia sp. nov. (Brazil), G. cressae sp. nov. (Venezuela), G. jureia sp. nov. (Brazil), G. leccii sp. nov. (Brazil), G. muelleri sp. nov. (Brazil), G. paprockii sp. nov. (Brazil), G. parati sp. nov. (Brazil) and G. trujilloi sp. nov. (Venezuela). The monophyly of the genus is corroborated (16 synapomorphies) and the phylogenetic relationships of its included species, based on analysis of 66 adult, larval, and pupal characters, are inferred as (G. aequiunguis ((G. boraceiae (G. leccii, G. parati)) (G. rostrata ((G. flaveola, G. pulchella) (G. muelleri, G. paprockii)) (G. jureia (G. trujilloi (G. cressae, G. blahniki)))))). A taxonomic key to the males of the species is presented.Item Recovery of grassland plant communities after cessation of nutrient enrichment(2020-08) Portales Reyes, Maria CristinaDiversity is declining in many ecosystems, resulting in rates of extinction much greater than what is expected based on the fossil record. Species declines can be attributed to human activities drastically changing ecosystems by increasing rates of nutrient inputs, altering precipitation and disturbance regimes, destroying habitat, and reducing landscape connectivity. If we are to preserve a considerable fraction of the species in our planet and our ability to enjoy the benefits we derive from them, direct and immediate action informed by science is necessary. My dissertation research investigates a small piece of this large puzzle. Here, I present results from three long-term nutrient addition and cessation experiments where I study barriers for the recovery of grassland plant diversity after cessation of long-term nutrient inputs, and explore strategies to prevent further species losses. First, I study the role of potential reinforcing feedbacks involving soil microbial communities and plant mutualists that could prevent the recovery of plant diversity after cessation of nutrient enrichment. I then explore the effectiveness of common restoration strategies that aim to further reduce nutrient inputs, increase light availability, and reduce recruitment limitation. Finally, I evaluate whether prescribed burning can slow rates of species loses and promote recovery of diversity after reducing nutrient inputs. While unassisted recovery of diversity might be impossible or slow, my dissertation provides experimental evidence that ecosystem management can help maintain local diversity. In particular, seed addition and prescribed burning are both useful strategies for promoting the recovery of grassland plant diversity following reductions in nutrient inputs.Item Remotely detected aboveground plant function predicts belowground processes in two prairie diversity experiments(2021-06-08) Cavender-Bares, Jeannine; Schweiger, Anna K.; Gamon, John; Gholizadeh, Hamed; Kimberly, Helzer; Lapadat, Cathleen; Madritch, Michael; Townsend, Philip A.; Wang, Zhihui; Hobbie, Sarah E.; cavender@umn.edu; Cavender-Bares, JeannineImaging spectroscopy provides the opportunity to incorporate leaf and canopy optical data into ecological studies, but the extent to which remote sensing of vegetation can enhance the study of belowground processes is not well understood. In terrestrial systems, aboveground and belowground vegetation quantity and quality are coupled, and both influence belowground microbial processes and nutrient cycling, providing a potential link between remote sensing and belowground processes. We hypothesized that ecosystem productivity, and the chemical, structural and phylogenetic-functional composition of plant communities would be detectable with remote sensing and could be used to predict belowground plant and soil processes in two grassland biodiversity experiments—the BioDIV experiment at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve in Minnesota and the Wood River Nature Conservancy experiment in Nebraska. Specifically, we tested whether aboveground vegetation chemistry and productivity, as detected from airborne sensors, predict soil properties, microbial processes and community composition. Imaging spectroscopy data were used to map aboveground biomass and green vegetation cover, functional traits and phylogenetic-functional community composition of vegetation. We examined the relationships between the image-derived variables and soil carbon and nitrogen concentration, microbial community composition, biomass and extracellular enzyme activity, and soil processes, including net nitrogen mineralization. In the BioDIV experiment—which has low overall diversity and productivity despite high variation in each—belowground processes were driven mainly by variation in the amount of organic matter inputs to soils. As a consequence, soil respiration, microbial biomass and enzyme activity, and fungal and bacterial composition and diversity were significantly predicted by remotely sensed vegetation cover and biomass. In contrast, at Wood River—where plant diversity and productivity were consistently higher—remotely sensed functional, chemical and phylogenetic composition of vegetation predicted belowground extracellular enzyme activity, microbial biomass, and net nitrogen mineralization rates. Aboveground biomass (or cover) did not predict these belowground attributes. The strong, contrasting associations between the quantity and chemistry of aboveground inputs with belowground soil processes and properties provide a basis for using imaging spectroscopy to understand belowground processes across productivity gradients in grassland systems. However, a mechanistic understanding of how above and belowground components interact among different ecosystems remains critical to extending these results broadly.Item Shifting phenology and abundance under experimental warming alters trophic relationships and plant reproductive capacity(Ecological Society of America, 2011) Liu, Yinzhan; Reich, Peter B; Li, Guoyong; Sun, ShucunPhenological mismatches due to climate change may have important ecological consequences. In a three-year study, phenological shifts due to experimental warming markedly altered trophic relationships between plants and insect herbivores, causing a dramatic decline of reproductive capacity for one of the plant species. In a Tibetan meadow, the gentian (Gentiana formosa) typically flowers after the peak larva density of a noctuid moth (Melanchra pisi) that primarily feeds on a dominant forb (anemone, Anemone trullifolia var. linearis). However, artificial warming of ∼1.5°C advanced gentian flower phenology and anemone vegetative phenology by a week, but delayed moth larvae emergence by two weeks. The warming increased larval density 10-fold, but decreased anemone density by 30%. The phenological and density shifts under warmed conditions resulted in the insect larvae feeding substantially on the gentian flowers and ovules; there was ∼100-fold more damage in warmed than in unwarmed chambers. This radically increased trophic connection reduced gentian plant reproduction and likely contributed to its reduced abundance in the warmed chambers.Item Species richness, but not phylogenetic diversity, influences community biomass production and temporal stability in a re-examination of 16 grassland biodiversity studies(Wiley, 2015) Venail, Patrick; Gross, Kevin; Oakley, Todd H; Narwani, Anita; Allan, Eric; Flombaum, Pedro; Isbell, Forest; Joshi, Jasmin; Reich, Peter B; Tilman, David; van Ruijven, Jasper; Cardinale, Bradley JHundreds of experiments have now manipulated species richness (SR) of various groups of organisms and examined how this aspect of biological diversity influences ecosystem functioning. Ecologists have recently expanded this field to look at whether phylogenetic diversity (PD) among species, often quantified as the sum of branch lengths on a molecular phylogeny leading to all species in a community, also predicts ecological function. Some have hypothesized that phylogenetic divergence should be a superior predictor of ecological function than SR because evolutionary relatedness represents the degree of ecological and functional differentiation among species. But studies to date have provided mixed support for this hypothesis. Here, we reanalyse data from 16 experiments that have manipulated plant SR in grassland ecosystems and examined the impact on above-ground biomass production over multiple time points. Using a new molecular phylogeny of the plant species used in these experiments, we quantified how the PD of plants impacts average community biomass production as well as the stability of community biomass production through time. Using four complementary analyses, we show that, after statistically controlling for variation in SR, PD (the sum of branches in a molecular phylogenetic tree connecting all species in a community) is neither related to mean community biomass nor to the temporal stability of biomass. These results run counter to past claims. However, after controlling for SR, PD was positively related to variation in community biomass over time due to an increase in the variances of individual species, but this relationship was not strong enough to influence community stability. In contrast to the non-significant relationships between PD, biomass and stability, our analyses show that SR per se tends to increase the mean biomass production of plant communities, after controlling for PD. The relationship between SR and temporal variation in community biomass was either positive, non-significant or negative depending on which analysis was used. However, the increases in community biomass with SR, independently of PD, always led to increased stability. These results suggest that PD is no better as a predictor of ecosystem functioning than SR. Synthesis. Our study on grasslands offers a cautionary tale when trying to relate PD to ecosystem functioning suggesting that there may be ecologically important trait and functional variation among species that is not explained by phylogenetic relatedness. Our results fail to support the hypothesis that the conservation of evolutionarily distinct species would be more effective than the conservation of SR as a way to maintain productive and stable communities under changing environmental conditions.Item Three new species of Helicopsyche von Siebold (Trichoptera: Helicopsychidae) from Brazil(Magnolia Press, 2016) Holzenthal, Ralph W.; Blahnik, Roger J.; Calor, Adolfo R.Three new species of Helicopsyche subgenus Feropsyche (Trichoptera: Helicopsychidae) from southern and southeastern Brazil are diagnosed, described, and illustrated: Helicopsyche angeloi sp. nov. (Holotype male deposited in MZSP: Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo States), H. guara sp. nov. (Holotype male deposited in MZSP: Minas Gerais and Santa Catarina States) and H. lazzariae sp. nov. (Holotype male in MZSP: Paraná State). The first two species are similar to H. cipoensis Johanson & Malm, 2006, and H. timbira Silva, Santos & Nessimian, 2014, in having similarly shaped inferior appendages. However, the new species differs in the morphology and distribution of setae on the inferior appendages and tergum X. Helicopsyche lazzariae sp. nov. is unlike any other described species in the subgenus Feropsyche because of its broad deltoid-shaped inferior appendage and absence of a basomesal process on the inferior appendage. Characters important for diagnosing and describing new species of Helicopsyche (Feropsyche) are discussed. Finally, an updated checklist of the 23 species recorded for Brazil is presented.