Dataset Information

Disentangling the influences of mean body size and size structure on ecosystem functioning: an example of nutrient recycling by a non-native crayfish.

ABSTRACT: Body size is a fundamental functional trait that can be used to forecast individuals' responses to environmental change and their contribution to ecosystem functioning. However, information on the mean and variation of size distributions often confound one another when relating body size to aggregate functioning. Given that size-based metrics are used as indicators of ecosystem status, it is important to identify the specific aspects of size distributions that mediate ecosystem functioning. Our goal was to simultaneously account for the mean, variance, and shape of size distributions when relating body size to aggregate ecosystem functioning. We take advantage of habitat-specific differences in size distributions to estimate nutrient recycling by a non-native crayfish using mean-field and variance-incorporating approaches. Crayfishes often substantially influence ecosystem functioning through their omnivorous role in aquatic food webs. As predicted from Jensen's inequality, considering only the mean body size of crayfish overestimated aggregate effects on ecosystem functioning. This bias declined with mean body size such that mean-field and variance-incorporating estimates of ecosystem functioning were similar for samples at mean body sizes >7.5 g. At low mean body size, mean-field bias in ecosystem functioning mismatch predictions from Jensen's inequality, likely because of the increasing skewness of the size distribution. Our findings support the prediction that variance around the mean can alter the relationship between body size and ecosystem functioning, especially at low mean body size. However, methods to account for mean-field bias performed poorly in samples with highly skewed distributions, indicating that changes in the shape of the distribution, in addition to the variance, may confound mean-based estimates of ecosystem functioning. Given that many biological functions scale allometrically, explicitly defining and experimentally or statistically isolating the effects of the mean, variance, and shape of size distributions is necessary to begin generalizing relationships between animal body size and ecosystem functioning.

SUBMITTER: Fritschie KJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4716502 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Disentangling the influences of mean body size and size structure on ecosystem functioning: an example of nutrient recycling by a non-native crayfish.

Fritschie Keith J KJ Olden Julian D JD

Ecology and evolution 20151215 1

Body size is a fundamental functional trait that can be used to forecast individuals' responses to environmental change and their contribution to ecosystem functioning. However, information on the mean and variation of size distributions often confound one another when relating body size to aggregate functioning. Given that size-based metrics are used as indicators of ecosystem status, it is important to identify the specific aspects of size distributions that mediate ecosystem functioning. Our ...[more]

PMID: 26811781

Similar Datasets

Project description:In soil, the link between microbial diversity and carbon transformations is challenged by the concept of functional redundancy. Here, we hypothesized that functional redundancy may decrease with increasing carbon source recalcitrance and that coupling of diversity with C cycling may change accordingly. We manipulated microbial diversity to examine how diversity decrease affects the decomposition of easily degradable (i.e., allochthonous plant residues) versus recalcitrant (i.e., autochthonous organic matter) C sources. We found that a decrease in microbial diversity (i) affected the decomposition of both autochthonous and allochthonous carbon sources, thereby reducing global CO2 emission by up to 40%, and (ii) shaped the source of CO2 emission toward preferential decomposition of most degradable C sources. Our results also revealed that the significance of the diversity effect increases with nutrient availability. Altogether, these findings show that C cycling in soil may be more vulnerable to microbial diversity changes than expected from previous studies, particularly in ecosystems exposed to nutrient inputs. Thus, concern about the preservation of microbial diversity may be highly relevant in the current global-change context assumed to impact soil biodiversity and the pulse inputs of plant residues and rhizodeposits into the soil.IMPORTANCE With hundreds of thousands of taxa per gram of soil, microbial diversity dominates soil biodiversity. While numerous studies have established that microbial communities respond rapidly to environmental changes, the relationship between microbial diversity and soil functioning remains controversial. Using a well-controlled laboratory approach, we provide empirical evidence that microbial diversity may be of high significance for organic matter decomposition, a major process on which rely many of the ecosystem services provided by the soil ecosystem. These new findings should be taken into account in future studies aimed at understanding and predicting the functional consequences of changes in microbial diversity on soil ecosystem services and carbon storage in soil.

Dataset Information

Disentangling the influences of mean body size and size structure on ecosystem functioning: an example of nutrient recycling by a non-native crayfish.

Publications

Disentangling the influences of mean body size and size structure on ecosystem functioning: an example of nutrient recycling by a non-native crayfish.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets