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Spatial effects on species persistence and implications for biodiversity.

ABSTRACT: Natural ecosystems are characterized by striking diversity of form and functions and yet exhibit deep symmetries emerging across scales of space, time, and organizational complexity. Species-area relationships and species-abundance distributions are examples of emerging patterns irrespective of the details of the underlying ecosystem functions. Here we present empirical and theoretical evidence for a new macroecological pattern related to the distributions of local species persistence times, defined as the time spans between local colonizations and extinctions in a given geographic region. Empirical distributions pertaining to two different taxa, breeding birds and herbaceous plants, analyzed in a framework that accounts for the finiteness of the observational period exhibit power-law scaling limited by a cutoff determined by the rate of emergence of new species. In spite of the differences between taxa and spatial scales of analysis, the scaling exponents are statistically indistinguishable from each other and significantly different from those predicted by existing models. We theoretically investigate how the scaling features depend on the structure of the spatial interaction network and show that the empirical scaling exponents are reproduced once a two-dimensional isotropic texture is used, regardless of the details of the ecological interactions. The framework developed here also allows to link the cutoff time scale with the spatial scale of analysis, and the persistence-time distribution to the species-area relationship. We conclude that the inherent coherence obtained between spatial and temporal macroecological patterns points at a seemingly general feature of the dynamical evolution of ecosystems.

SUBMITTER: Bertuzzo E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3060266 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Spatial effects on species persistence and implications for biodiversity.

Bertuzzo Enrico E Suweis Samir S Mari Lorenzo L Maritan Amos A Rodríguez-Iturbe Ignacio I Rinaldo Andrea A

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20110228 11

Natural ecosystems are characterized by striking diversity of form and functions and yet exhibit deep symmetries emerging across scales of space, time, and organizational complexity. Species-area relationships and species-abundance distributions are examples of emerging patterns irrespective of the details of the underlying ecosystem functions. Here we present empirical and theoretical evidence for a new macroecological pattern related to the distributions of local species persistence times, def ...[more]

PMID: 21368181

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Project description:In spite of evidence for positive diversity-productivity relationships increasing plant diversity has highly variable effects on the performance of individual plant species, but the mechanisms behind these differential responses are far from being understood. To gain deeper insights into the physiological responses of individual plant species to increasing plant diversity we performed systematic untargeted metabolite profiling on a number of herbs derived from a grassland biodiversity experiment (Jena Experiment). The Jena Experiment comprises plots of varying species number (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 60) and number and composition of functional groups (1 to 4; grasses, legumes, tall herbs, small herbs). In this study the metabolomes of two tall-growing herbs (legume: Medicago x varia; non-legume: Knautia arvensis) and three small-growing herbs (legume: Lotus corniculatus; non-legumes: Bellis perennis, Leontodon autumnalis) in plant communities of increasing diversity were analyzed. For metabolite profiling we combined gas chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-TOF-MS) and UPLC coupled to FT-ICR-MS (LC-FT-MS) analyses from the same sample. This resulted in several thousands of detected m/z-features. ANOVA and multivariate statistical analysis revealed 139 significantly changed metabolites (30 by GC-TOF-MS and 109 by LC-FT-MS). The small-statured plants L. autumnalis, B. perennis and L. corniculatus showed metabolic response signatures to increasing plant diversity and species richness in contrast to tall-statured plants. Key-metabolites indicated C- and N-limitation for the non-leguminous small-statured species B. perennis and L. autumnalis, while the metabolic signature of the small-statured legume L. corniculatus indicated facilitation by other legumes. Thus, metabolomic analysis provided evidence for negative effects of resource competition on the investigated small-statured herbs that might mechanistically explain their decreasing performance with increasing plant diversity. In contrast, taller species often becoming dominant in mixed plant communities did not show modified metabolite profiles in response to altered resource availability with increasing plant diversity. Taken together, our study demonstrates that metabolite profiling is a strong diagnostic tool to assess individual metabolic phenotypes in response to plant diversity and ecophysiological adjustment.

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Spatial effects on species persistence and implications for biodiversity.

Publications

Spatial effects on species persistence and implications for biodiversity.

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