552 publications from this institution
Loss of plant diversity has an impact on ecosystems worldwide, but we lack a mechanistic understanding of how this loss may influence below‐ground biota and ecosystem functions across contrasting ecosystems in the long term. We used the longest running biodiversity manipulation experiment across contrasting ecosystems in existence to explore the below‐ground consequences of 19 years of plant functional group removals for each of 30 contrasting forested lake islands in northern Sweden. We found that, against expectations, the effects of plant removals on the communities of key groups of soil organisms (bacteria, fungi and nematodes), and organic matter quality and soil ecosystem functioning (decomposition and microbial activity) were relatively similar among islands that varied greatly in productivity and soil fertility. This highlights that, in contrast to what has been shown for plant productivity, plant biodiversity loss effects on below‐ground functions can be relatively insensitive to environmental context or variation among widely contrasting ecosystems.
Naeem and Li 1 present the results of a microcosm study in which species diversity of organisms within trophic groups was varied. They conclude that the existence of multiple species within these groups enhanced the “reliability” of these systems, that is, the increased likelihood of a consistent level of performance over a given unit of time. But there are problems with their study. For the least diverse communities, one predator species was randomly selected from a selection of two, one autotroph from a selection of three, one consumer of bacteria from a selection of five, and one omnivore from a selection of six. Meanwhile, with the most diverse communities, both predator species and all three autotroph species were used, three consumer bacteria were chosen from the five and three omnivores from the six.
