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Ecosystem

About: Ecosystem is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 25460 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1291375 citations. The topic is also known as: ecological system & Ecosystem.


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Book
01 Jul 2005
TL;DR: The nature of predation, the influence of population interactions on community structure, and Ecological applications at the level of communities and ecosystems are examined.
Abstract: Preface.Introduction.Part 1. ORGANISMS .1. Organisms in their environments: the evolutionary backdrop.2. Conditions.3. Resources.4. Life, death and life histories.5. Intraspecific competition.6. Dispersal, dormancy and metapopulations.7. Ecological applications at the level of organisms and single-species populations Part 2. SPECIES INTERACTIONS.8. Interspecific competition.9. The nature of predation.10. The population dynamics of predation.11. Decomposers and detritivores.12. Parasitism and disease.13. Symbiosis and mutualism.14. Abundance.15. Ecological applications at the level of population interactions Part 3. COMMUNITIES AND ECOSYSTEMS .16. The nature of the community.17. The flux of energy through ecosystems.18. The flux of matter through ecosystems.19. The influence of population interactions on community structure.20. Food webs.21. Patterns in species richness.22. Ecological applications at the level of communities and ecosystems.References.Organism Index.Subject Index

1,906 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
07 Jun 2012-Nature
TL;DR: The analyses clearly show that the ecosystem consequences of local species loss are as quantitatively significant as the direct effects of several global change stressors that have mobilized major international concern and remediation efforts.
Abstract: Evidence is mounting that extinctions are altering key processes important to the productivity and sustainability of Earth’s ecosystems 1–4 . Further species loss will accelerate change in ecosystem processes 5–8 , but it is unclear how these effects compare to the direct effects of other forms of environmental change that are both driving diversity loss and altering ecosystem function. Here we use a suite of meta-analyses of published data to show that the effects of species loss on productivity and decomposition—two processes important in all ecosystems—are of comparable magnitude to the effects of many other global environmental changes. In experiments, intermediate levels of species loss (21–40%) reduced plant production by 5–10%, comparable to previously documented effects of ultraviolet radiation and climate warming. Higher levels of extinction (41–60%) had effects rivalling those of ozone, acidification, elevated CO2 and nutrient pollution. At intermediate levels, species loss generally had equal or greater effects on decomposition than did elevated CO2 and nitrogen addition. The identity of species lost also had a large effect on changes in productivity and decomposition, generating a wide range of plausible outcomes for extinction. Despite the need for more studies on interactive effects of diversity loss and environmental changes, our analyses clearly show that the ecosystem consequences of local species loss are as quantitatively significant as the direct effects of several global change stressors that have mobilized major international concern and remediation efforts 9 .

1,858 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This review examines how eutrophication influences the biomass and species composition of algae in both freshwater and costal marine systems and suggests that efforts to manage nutrient inputs to the seas will result in significant improvements in coastal zone water quality.
Abstract: Humans now strongly influence almost every major aquatic ecosystem, and their activities have dramatically altered the fluxes of growth-limiting nutrients from the landscape to receiving waters. Unfortunately, these nutrient inputs have had profound negative effects upon the quality of surface waters worldwide. This review examines how eutrophication influences the biomass and species composition of algae in both freshwater and costal marine systems. An overview of recent advances in algae-related eutrophication research is presented. In freshwater systems, a summary is presented for lakes and reservoirs; streams and rivers; and wetlands. A brief summary is also presented for estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems. Eutrophication causes predictable increases in the biomass of algae in lakes and reservoirs; streams and rivers; wetlands; and coastal marine ecosystems. As in lakes, the response of suspended algae in large rivers to changes in nutrient loading may be hysteretic in some cases. The inhibitory effects of high concentrations of inorganic suspended solids on algal growth, which can be very evident in many reservoirs receiving high inputs of suspended soils, also potentially may occur in turbid rivers. Consistent and predictable eutrophication-caused increases in cyanobacterial dominance of phytoplankton have been reported worldwide for natural lakes, and similar trends are reported here both for phytoplankton in turbid reservoirs, and for suspended algae in a large river. A remarkable unity is evident in the global response of algal biomass to nitrogen and phosphorus availability in lakes and reservoirs; wetlands; streams and rivers; and coastal marine waters. The species composition of algal communities inhabiting the water column appears to respond similarly to nutrient loading, whether in lakes, reservoirs, or rivers. As is true of freshwater ecosystems, the recent literature suggests that coastal marine ecosystems will respond positively to nutrient loading control efforts. Our understanding of freshwater eutrophication and its effects on algal-related water quality is strong and is advancing rapidly. However, our understanding of the effects of eutrophication on estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems is much more limited, and this gap represents an important future research need. Although coastal systems can be hydrologically complex, the biomass of marine phytoplankton nonetheless appears to respond sensitively and predictably to changes in the external supplies of nitrogen and phosphorus. These responses suggest that efforts to manage nutrient inputs to the seas will result in significant improvements in coastal zone water quality. Additional new efforts should be made to develop models that quantitatively link ecosystem-level responses to nutrient loading in both freshwater and marine systems.

1,816 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Sep 2004-Ecology
TL;DR: The three easily measurable traits tested, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, and nitrogen concentration, provide a simple means to scale up from organ to ecosystem functioning in complex plant communities and be used to assess the impacts of community changes on ecosystem properties induced, in particular, by global change drivers.
Abstract: Although the structure and composition of plant communities is known to influence the functioning of ecosystems, there is as yet no agreement as to how these should be described from a functional perspective. We tested the biomass ratio hypothesis, which postulates that ecosystem properties should depend on species traits and on species contribution to the total biomass of the community, in a successional sere following vineyard abandonment in the Mediterranean region of France. Ecosystem-specific net primary productivity, litter decomposition rate, and total soil carbon and nitrogen varied significantly with field age, and correlated with community-aggregated (i.e., weighed according to the relative abundance of species) functional leaf traits. The three easily measurable traits tested, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, and nitrogen concentration, provide a simple means to scale up from organ to ecosystem functioning in complex plant communities. We propose that they be called ''functional markers,'' and be used to assess the impacts of community changes on ecosystem properties induced, in particular, by global change drivers.

1,769 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2006-Nature
TL;DR: It is found that greater numbers of plant species led to greater temporal stability of ecosystem annual aboveground plant production and the reliable, efficient and sustainable supply of some foods, fuels and ecosystem services can be enhanced by the use of biodiversity.
Abstract: Human-driven ecosystem simplification has highlighted questions about how the number of species in an ecosystem influences its functioning. Although biodiversity is now known to affect ecosystem productivity, its effects on stability are debated. Here we present a long-term experimental field test of the diversity-stability hypothesis. During a decade of data collection in an experiment that directly controlled the number of perennial prairie species, growing-season climate varied considerably, causing year-to-year variation in abundances of plant species and in ecosystem productivity. We found that greater numbers of plant species led to greater temporal stability of ecosystem annual aboveground plant production. In particular, the decadal temporal stability of the ecosystem, whether measured with intervals of two, five or ten years, was significantly greater at higher plant diversity and tended to increase as plots matured. Ecosystem stability was also positively dependent on root mass, which is a measure of perenniating biomass. Temporal stability of the ecosystem increased with diversity, despite a lower temporal stability of individual species, because of both portfolio (statistical averaging) and overyielding effects. However, we found no evidence of a covariance effect. Our results indicate that the reliable, efficient and sustainable supply of some foods (for example, livestock fodder), biofuels and ecosystem services can be enhanced by the use of biodiversity.

1,743 citations


Network Information
Related Topics (5)
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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20242
20235,630
202210,638
20212,059
20201,701
20191,681