All terrestrial ecosystems consist of aboveground and belowground components that interact to influence community- and ecosystem-level processes and properties. Here we show how these components are closely interlinked at the community level, reinforced by a greater degree of specificity between plants and soil organisms than has been previously supposed. As such, aboveground and belowground communities can be powerful mutual drivers, with both positive and negative feedbacks. A combined aboveground-belowground approach to community and ecosystem ecology is enhancing our understanding of the regulation and functional significance of biodiversity and of the environmental impacts of human-induced global change phenomena.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/304/5677/1629.full.pdf

Ecological linkages between aboveground and belowground biota.

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the rates at which Coarse Woody Debris (CWD) is added and removed from ecosystems, the biomass found in streams and forests, and many functions that CWD serves. CWD is an important component of temperate stream and forest ecosystems and is added to the ecosystem by numerous mechanisms, including wind, fire, insect attack, pathogens, competition, and geomorphic processes. Many factors control the rate at which CWD decomposes, including temperature, moisture, the internal gas composition of CWD, substrate quality, the size of the CWD, and the types of organisms involved. The mass of CWD in an ecosystem ideally represents the balance between addition and loss. In reality, slow decomposition rates and erratic variations in input of CWD cause the CWD mass to deviate markedly from steady-state projections. Many differences correspond to forest type, with deciduous-dominated systems having generally lower biomass than conifer-dominated systems. Stream size also influences CWD mass in lotic ecosystems, while successional stage dramatically influences CWD mass in boat aquatic and terrestrial settings. This chapter reviews many of these functions and concludes that CWD is an important functional component of stream and forest ecosystems. Better scientific understanding of these functions and the natural factors influencing CWD dynamics should lead to more enlightened management practices.

Ecology of Coarse Woody Debris in Temperate Ecosystems

I. CONTEXT * The Ecosystem Concept * Earth's Climate System * Geology and Soils * II. MECHANISMS * Terrestrial Water and Energy Balance * Carbon Input to Terrestrial Ecosystems * Terrestrial Production Processes * Terrestrial Decomposition * Terrestrial Plant Nutrient Use * Terrestrial Nutrient Cycling * Aquatic Carbon and Nutrient Cycling * Trophic Dynamics * Community Effects on Ecosystem Processes * III. PATTERNS * Temporal Dynamics * Landscape Heterogeneity and Ecosystem Dynamics * IV. INTEGRATION * Global Biogeochemical Cycles * Managing and Sustaining Ecosystem * Abbreviations * Glossary * References

Principles of Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology

Summary 1. The concept of plant functional type proposes that species can be grouped according to common responses to the environment and/or common effects on ecosystem processes. However, the knowledge of relationships between traits associated with the response of plants to environmental factors such as resources and disturbances (response traits), and traits that determine effects of plants on ecosystem functions (effect traits), such as biogeochemical cycling or propensity to disturbance, remains rudimentary. 2. We present a framework using concepts and results from community ecology, ecosystem ecology and evolutionary biology to provide this linkage. Ecosystem functioning is the end result of the operation of multiple environmental filters in a hierarchy of scales which, by selecting individuals with appropriate responses, result in assemblages with varying trait composition. Functional linkages and trade-offs among traits, each of which relates to one or several processes, determine whether or not filtering by different factors gives a match, and whether ecosystem effects can be easily deduced

/pdf/predicting-changes-in-community-composition-and-ecosystem-3zopj1ch0s.pdf

Predicting changes in community composition and ecosystem functioning from plant traits: revisiting the Holy Grail

Publisher Summary In this chapter, the advances that have been made in understanding the ecology of the mineral nutrition of wild plants from terrestrial ecosystems have been reviewed. This chapter is organized along three lines. First, the issues of nutrient-limited plant growth and nutrient uptake, with special emphasis on the importance of the uptake of nutrients in organic form—both by mycorrhizal and by non-mycorrhizal plants—and the importance of symbiotic nitrogen fixation is treated. In addition, the influence of allocation patterns on mineral nutrient uptake is described. Next, a few of the nutritional aspects of leaf functioning and how nutrients are used for biomass production by the plant are explored. That is done by studying the nutrient use efficiency (NUE) of plants and the various components of NUE. Finally, the feedback of plant species to soil nutrient availability by reviewing patterns in litter decomposition and nutrient mineralization is investigated. The chapter concludes with a synthesis of the various aspects of the mineral nutrition of wild plants. The chapter ends with a conceptual description of plant strategies with respect to mineral nutrition.

M. J. Swift

Papers

Decomposition in Terrestrial Ecosystems

Plant litter quality and decomposition: an historical overview

Decomposition in Terrestrial Ecosystems. Studies in Ecology Vol. 5.