Journal ArticleDOI
Ecosystem responses to water and nitrogen amendment in a California grassland
TLDR
In this paper, the authors show that grassland ecosystem response to N deposition will be strongly dependent on future precipitation patterns and that water and N addition in combination in combination led to increased dominance of the two most abundant grass species, while N addition regardless of water availability led to decreased species diversity.Abstract:
The world's ecosystems are experiencing simultaneous changes in the supply of multiple limiting resources. Two of these, water and nitrogen (N) can strongly limit grassland production and can affect community composition and biogeochemical cycles in different ways. Grassland ecosystems in California may be particularly vulnerable to current and predicted changes in precipitation and N deposition, and ecosystem responses to potential interactive effects of water and N are not well understood. Here, we show strong colimitation of plant production resulting from factorial addition of water and N. In addition, water and N addition in combination led to increased dominance of the two most abundant grass species, while N addition regardless of water availability led to decreased species diversity. Late season carbon (C) flux response to water addition depended on N. Only plots that received additional water, but not N, still showed net ecosystem C uptake at the end of the experiment. Our results suggest that grassland ecosystem response to N deposition will be strongly dependent on future precipitation patterns.read more
Citations
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Responses of terrestrial ecosystems to temperature and precipitation change: a meta-analysis of experimental manipulation.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used metaanalysis to synthesize ecosystem-level responses to warming, altered precipitation, and their combination, focusing on plant growth and ecosystem carbon (C) balance, including biomass, net primary production (NPP), respiration, net ecosystem exchange (NEE), and ecosystem photosynthesis.
Journal ArticleDOI
Nutrient co-limitation of primary producer communities
W. Stanley Harpole,Jacqueline T. Ngai,Elsa E. Cleland,Eric W. Seabloom,Elizabeth T. Borer,Matthew E. S. Bracken,James J. Elser,Daniel S. Gruner,Helmut Hillebrand,Jonathan B. Shurin,Jennifer E. Smith +10 more
TL;DR: This work summarises multiple-resource limitation responses in plant communities using a dataset of 641 studies that applied factorial addition of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in freshwater, marine and terrestrial systems to highlight the importance of interactions between N and P in regulating primary producer community biomass.
Journal ArticleDOI
Pathways of Grazing Effects on Soil Organic Carbon and Nitrogen
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of grazing on soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in grasslands were investigated and the major mechanistic pathways involved were established, including changes in net primary production (NPP), changes in nitrogen stocks (nitrogen pathway), and changes in organic matter decomposition (decomposition pathway).
Journal ArticleDOI
Different responses of soil respiration and its components to nitrogen addition among biomes: a meta-analysis
TL;DR: A comprehensive meta-analysis of 295 published studies to examine the responses of Rs and its components to N addition in terrestrial ecosystems shows that N addition significantly increased Rs across all biomes but decreased by 1.44% in forests and increased by 7.4% in grasslands and croplands.
Journal ArticleDOI
Plant community responses to nitrogen addition and increased precipitation: the importance of water availability and species traits
TL;DR: The results highlight the importance and complexity of both abiotic (SM) and biotic factors (species traits) in structuring plant community under changing environmental scenarios and indicate that knowledge of species traits can contribute to mechanistic understanding and projection of vegetation dynamics in response to future environmental change.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Human Domination of Earth's Ecosystems
TL;DR: Human alteration of Earth is substantial and growing as discussed by the authors, between one-third and one-half of the land surface has been transformed by human action; the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased by nearly 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; more atmospheric nitrogen is fixed by humanity than by all natural terrestrial sources combined; more than half of all accessible surface fresh water is put to use by humanity; and about one-quarter of the bird species on Earth have been driven to extinction.
Journal ArticleDOI
Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100.
Osvaldo E. Sala,F. S. Chapin,Juan J. Armesto,Eric L. Berlow,Janine Bloomfield,Rodolfo Dirzo,E Huber-Sanwald,Laura Foster Huenneke,Robert B. Jackson,Ann P. Kinzig,Rik Leemans,David M. Lodge,Harold A. Mooney,Martín Oesterheld,N L Poff,Martin T. Sykes,Brian Walker,Marilyn D. Walker,Diana H. Wall +18 more
TL;DR: This study identified a ranking of the importance of drivers of change, aranking of the biomes with respect to expected changes, and the major sources of uncertainties in projections of future biodiversity change.
Journal ArticleDOI
Human alteration of the global nitrogen cycle: sources and consequences
Peter M. Vitousek,John D. Aber,Robert W. Howarth,Gene E. Likens,Pamela A. Matson,David W. Schindler,William H. Schlesinger,David Tilman +7 more
TL;DR: In this article, a review of available scientific evidence shows that human alterations of the nitrogen cycle have approximately doubled the rate of nitrogen input into the terrestrial nitrogen cycle, with these rates still increasing; increased concentrations of the potent greenhouse gas N 2O globally, and increased concentration of other oxides of nitrogen that drive the formation of photochemical smog over large regions of Earth.
Journal ArticleDOI
Forecasting agriculturally driven global environmental change
David Tilman,Joseph Fargione,Brian G. Wolff,Carla M. D'Antonio,Andrew P. Dobson,Robert W. Howarth,David W. Schindler,William H. Schlesinger,Daniel Simberloff,Deborah L. Swackhamer +9 more
TL;DR: Should past dependences of the global environmental impacts of agriculture on human population and consumption continue, 109 hectares of natural ecosystems would be converted to agriculture by 2050, accompanied by 2.4- to 2.7-fold increases in nitrogen- and phosphorus-driven eutrophication of terrestrial, freshwater, and near-shore marine ecosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate-Driven Increases in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 1982 to 1999
Ramakrishna R. Nemani,Charles D. Keeling,Hirofumi Hashimoto,Hirofumi Hashimoto,William M. Jolly,Stephen C. Piper,Compton J. Tucker,Ranga B. Myneni,Steven W. Running +8 more
TL;DR: It is indicated that global changes in climate have eased several critical climatic constraints to plant growth, such that net primary production increased 6% (3.4 petagrams of carbon over 18 years) globally.