Publications

No abstract is provided for this article.

Soil fertility and vegetation are major drivers of soil communities. Soil community responses to vegetation development and associated changes in soil fertility have been mostly reported for chronosequences that span time scales from decades to centuries. Here we evaluated soil communities for two contrasting chronosequences, the Franz Josef chronosequence in southern New Zealand caused by glacial retreat and spanning 120,000 years, and the Cooloola chronosequence in eastern Australia caused by aeolian movement of sand that spans 700,000 years. Both chronosequences feature later-phase retrogressive stages characterized by reduced nutrient availability and plant stature. We hypothesized that soil communities would mirror the patterns of vegetation across these long-term chronosequences with organism biomasses, abundances and diversity increasing throughout early stages of the succession and declining at retrogression stages. The hypothesis was not consistently supported. Bacterial and fungal biomass increased across the youngest chronosequence stages but remained unchanged across the later stages, while fungal-to-bacterial ratios increased throughout. Microbial biomass was related to soil nitrogen concentrations across both chronosequences. Invertebrate abundance and richness increased during the early stages of ecosystem development in both chronosequences, but different groups peaked at different stages at each chronosequence, and not all invertebrate groups declined during the retrogressive stages. Invertebrate groups had no consistent correlations with biotic or abiotic ecosystem properties across either chronosequence. Our study demonstrates that soil organisms track changes in plant biomass and richness and soil fertility during the initial stages of both chronosequences, but with increasing age of the chronosequences, these relationships weaken and other factors drive the soil community. Possible explanations for the different patterns in soil communities at the two chronosequences include that they differ strongly in soil organic matter, nutrient concentrations and abundances of soil organisms (all of which are much higher at Franz Josef than Cooloola), overlaid with different macroclimate and geology, so that different factors are likely to restrict the presence of particular organisms across both chronosequences. As such, while soil fertility and vegetation are widely recognized as important drivers of the soil community, the manner in which these factors directly and indirectly shape the soil community can vary greatly across organism groups, among chronosequences, and over the time scales that ecosystems develop.

We investigated how lichen traits such as nutrient content and growth form affect the community composition of invertebrates. Lichen traits explained 39% of the variation in abundance of invertebrate groups. Abundance and diversity was often positively correlated with lichen N and P concentrations. Foliose lichens tend to support more invertebrates than fruticose lichens. Our results reveal that differences between lichen species have a large impact on the invertebrate communities that live among lichen thalli. Given the large diversity of lichen traits and growth forms that occur in boreal forests, lichen–invertebrate communities may be an important contributor to overall community diversity. Springtail (Isotoma viridis) exploring foliose lichens on a tree trunk. Photo by Stef Bokhorst. This photograph illustrates the article “Lichen physiological traits and growth forms affect communities of associated invertebrates,” by Stef Bokhorst, Johan Asplund, Paul Kardol, and David Wardle, published in Ecology 96(9):2394–2407, September 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/14-1030.1

Invasive plants are a growing ecological problem worldwide, but biases and patterns within invasive plant research may affect our understanding of invasive plant ecology. In this study, we analyzed 458 invasive plant papers sampled from the two journals dedicated entirely to the field of invasion biology, i.e., Biological Invasions and Neobiota . From these papers, we collected information on geographic coverage, climate, habitat, taxonomic coverage, plant functional type, and research topic to examine trends across a 21‐year time period from 1999 to 2020. Our analysis found that invasive plant research was consistently biased toward temperate grassland and forest ecosystems particularly within the Americas, Europe, and Australia, and toward smaller, herbaceous invasive plant species (i.e., forbs, grasses, and shrubs), with an increase in interest in invasive nitrogen‐fixing legumes over time. Our analysis also identified “hot” research topics in invasive plant research at specific time periods, such as a peak in the use of genetic analysis methods in 2014–2015 and a more recent focus on plant physiological and functional traits. While current models, concepts, and understanding of plant invasion ecology are still driven by such biases, this has been partially offset by recent increased research in understudied systems, as well as increasing awareness that plant invasion is heavily affected by their growth types, physiological traits, and soil interactions. As the field of invasion biology becomes ever increasingly important over time, focusing invasive plant research on understudied ecosystems and plant groups will allow us to develop a more holistic understanding of the ecology of invasive plants. In particular, given the outsized importance of the tropics to global biodiversity, the threats they face, and the dearth of studies, it is of critical importance that more invasive plant research is conducted within the tropics to develop a more globally representative understanding of invasive plant ecology.

Stable nitrogen isotope ratios (δ 15 N) of plants and soil have been used to study changes in the N cycle during ecosystem succession and retrogression. However, little is known about how δ 15 N of soil mineral N and dissolved organic N (DON) change during retrogression, despite their potential to inform on processes contributing to N loss. Here, we examined the δ 15 N of NH 4 + and DON together with δ 15 N of the dominant plant species and bulk soil across a 5,000‐year‐old retrogressive chronosequence of forested islands in northern Sweden. The δ 15 N of bulk soil N, NH 4 + and DON did not change greatly during retrogression, suggesting that there are no major losses of N from the system. The δ 15 N of NH 4 + and DON was significantly correlated with that of bulk soil N across islands, indicating that bulk soil N is an important determinant of the δ 15 N of dissolved soil N. The δ 15 N of DON was significantly higher than those of NH 4 + and bulk soil N, probably because of the inclusion of microbial N to the DON fraction. Despite the lack of changes in δ 15 N of soil N as retrogression proceeded, the δ 15 N of most plant species increased. These results suggest that despite the relative importance of the three underlying mechanisms involved is unclear, the N resources of plants change in response to retrogression: they have an increasing reliance on DON, a decreasing dependence on N transferred from the mycorrhizal fungi and reduced reliance on N from surface soil layers as retrogression proceeds.

Data were collected in a full-factorial moss removal/shrub removal -warming experiment aloing a post fire chronosequence located in Northern Sweden, close to Arvidsjaur (65°?35`– 66°?07`N, 17?°15`–19°?26`E)) from June 2013 to August 2016. The file contains data of tree seedling species survival from 2013-2016 (sheet 1) and tree seedling growth (sheet 2).

Questions We tested the relationship between total cover, species richness and composition of epiphytic lichens on trunks of Betula pubescens and ecosystem retrogression (i.e. prolonged absence of major disturbance). We then investigated how the relationships changed when also accounting for tree‐scale factors (aspect, height and bark characteristics) and ecosystem‐scale factors (e.g. light transmission, tree species diversity and soil fertility). Location Thirty forested islands in northern Sweden differing in fire history, which collectively represent a retrogressive chronosequence spanning ca. 5000 yr. Results Total lichen cover responded negatively to long‐term absence of major disturbance, but only at exposed positions on the tree trunk, indicating that lichen cover on substrates with more favourable microclimates is less susceptible to environmental change at the ecosystem scale. Further, although there was no overall effect of island size on lichen species richness, we did find a significant interactive effect between island size and height on trunk on species richness. This emerged because species richness decreased with retrogression for lichen communities at breast height, but showed a hump‐shaped response to retrogression at the trunk base. Shifts in ecosystem properties with retrogression explained some of the variation in lichen community composition, but most of the variation could be explained by tree‐scale factors, notably height on the trunk. Conclusions While it has frequently been shown that lichens increase in abundance and richness during the first two or three centuries of succession, our results highlight that over a much longer time scale, encompassing soil aging and declining soil fertility, the lichen flora can be negatively affected. However, these effects are heavily mediated by tree‐scale factors. These changes in the lichen community may be of potential importance for ecosystem processes and higher trophic level interactions driven by lichen communities.

Study of the impacts of biological invasions, a pervasive component of global change, has generated remarkable understanding of the mechanisms and consequences of the spread of introduced populations. The growing field of invasion science, poised at a crossroads where ecology, social sciences, resource management, and public perception meet, is increasingly exposed to critical scrutiny from several perspectives. Although the rate of biological invasions, elucidation of their consequences, and knowledge about mitigation are growing rapidly, the very need for invasion science is disputed. Here, we highlight recent progress in understanding invasion impacts and management, and discuss the challenges that the discipline faces in its science and interactions with society.

Biodiversity enhances many of nature's benefits to people, including the regulation of climate and the production of wood in forests, livestock forage in grasslands and fish in aquatic ecosystems. Yet people are now driving the sixth mass extinction event in Earth's history. Human dependence and influence on biodiversity have mainly been studied separately and at contrasting scales of space and time, but new multiscale knowledge is beginning to link these relationships. Biodiversity loss substantially diminishes several ecosystem services by altering ecosystem functioning and stability, especially at the large temporal and spatial scales that are most relevant for policy and conservation.

Many studies at the regional scale have found either negative or hump-shaped relationships between productivity and diversity, and some theories propose that these occur because soil resource heterogeneity is either lower or less important in more productive environments. However, there have been few explicit tests of these theories in natural ecosystems. We evaluated the relationship between soil resource heterogeneity and plant richness within a well characterized system of 30 islands in northern Sweden across which soil fertility and productivity declines, and species richness increases, as a consequence of ecosystem retrogression. On each island we created a spatially explicit grid consisting of 49 sampling points in a 9.5 m quadrat, which we used to quantify spatial heterogeneity of five soil variables (NH4 -N, amino N, PO4 # -P, microbial biomass, and decomposition), and plant community composition. Using a hierarchical Bayesian approach, we estimated mean semivariograms of each variable for each island size class to compare three components of spatial heterogeneity: total variability, spatial grain, and patchiness. This analysis showed that variability within islands was usually lowest on small islands, where species richness was highest and productivity lowest; however, NH4 -N and amino N had greater patchiness and spatial grain on small islands. We did not detect any significant across-island correlations between whole-plot plant species richness and either whole-plot standard deviation or coefficient of variation of any soil variable. Using partial Mantel tests, we found that mean correlation coefficients between within-plot plant community composition and the soil variables were never significant for any island size class, and did not differ between island size classes. Our findings do not provide any evidence that soil resource heterogeneity controls the productivity! diversity relationship in this system, and suggests other mechanisms are primarily responsible.

Increases in fertilizer inputs and livestock numbers affect plant species composition and richness; this in turn can affect the biodiversity of soil fauna and nutrient cycling in pastures. We selected two adjacent farmlets to study these effects. Since 1980, one farmlet (LF) had not received superphosphate fertilizer (SSP) and has a low stock density of sheep, and the other (HF) had received 37.5g SSPm−2 y−1 and has a high stock density. In 2004, at both farmlets, we commenced treatments for 4 years, adding urea to raise N status, and non-residual selective herbicide to remove broadleaf species. Long-term SSP addition and increased sheep numbers, and added urea increased herbage production but reduced plant diversity. The effect of treatments on most of the soil biochemical and biological properties varied between years. This may have partly arisen from an infestation with Wiseana caterpillars in the first winter, causing resources to be low and total soil carbon (C) to be reduced by 4–8%; total C did, however, recover in later years. The urea and herbicide treatments caused greater changes above-ground than below-ground, but they did reduce soil microbial C and N and nematode diversity; urea at LF increased mineralizable N to the levels found at HF. On an area basis, HF generally had higher total C and N, earthworm and nematode numbers (including bacterial feeders, predators and omnivores), and nematode diversity, and greater values for the nematode channel ratio, than did LF. In contrast, the ratios of microbial C/total C and microbial N/total N, total mite numbers (including Oribatida, but not other mite groups), and fungal-feeding nematode numbers were higher at LF than at HF. Canonical correlation analysis suggested the plant and soil nematode communities responded in tandem and in predictable ways to the same environmental factors. Increased quantity and quality of inputs disadvantaged the fungal-based energy channel, with a measurable decline in the quantity of fungal phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs). While the quantity of bacterial PLFAs appeared to be unaffected by greater plant-derived inputs, the greater numbers of bacterial-feeding nematodes at the HF farmlet suggests the activity and flow of energy and nutrients through the bacterial community would be more important in the HF than the LF farmlet. Overall our results suggest the shift from fungal to bacterial pathways may lead to soil microbial/microfaunal interactions that retain less reactive N within soil biomass, with a consequent greater risk of N loss.