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.

Patterns of Change in the Carbon Balance of Organic Soil-Wetlands of the Temperate Zone

Abstract: (1) Organic soil-wetlands, particularly those in the temperate zone, under natural conditions, are net carbon sinks and hence are important links in the global cycling of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases. Human alteration of wetlands has brought about shifts in the balance of carbon movement between the wetlands and the atmosphere. Because previous analyses have not fully considered these shifts, disturbance of carbon storage in organic soil-wetlands of the temperate zone has been analysed for the last two centuries and considered in relation to other sources of atmospheric CO2 from the biosphere. (2) Storage before recent disturbance is estimated as 57 to 83 Mt of carbon per year, over two-thirds of this in boreal peatlands. The total storage rate, lower than previous estimates, reflects accumulation rates of carbon of only 0.20 t ha-' yr-1 and less in the boreal zone where 90% of temperate organic soils are found. (3) Widespread drainage of organic soil-wetlands for agriculture has significantly altered the carbon balance. A computer model was used to track the consequent changes in the carbon balance of nine wetland regions. Drainage reduced or eliminated net carbon sinks, converting some wetlands into net carbon sources. Different regions thus can function as smaller carbon sinks, or as sources, depending on the extent of drainage. In either case a shift in carbon balance can be quantified. (4) The net carbon sink in Finland and the U.S.S.R. has been reduced by 21-33%, in Western European wetlands by nearly 50%, and in Central Europe the sink has been completely lost. Overall, by 1900 the temperate zone sink was reduced 28-38% by agricultural drainage alone. (5) By 1980 the total annual shift in carbon balance attributable to agricultural drainage was 63-85 Mt of carbon, 38% in Finland and U.S.S.R. wetlands, and 37% in Europe. Twenty-five percent of the shift occurred in North American wetlands south of the boreal zone. No apparent change occurred in boreal Canada and Alaskan wetlands. (6) Peat combustion for fuel released 32-39 Mt of carbon annually, nearly all in the U.S.S.R. A total of 590-700 Mt of carbon has been released from peat combustion since 1795, compared with a release of 4140-5600 Mt from agricultural drainage. (7) The aggregate shift in the carbon balance of temperate zone wetlands, when added to a far smaller shift from tropical wetlands, equalled 150-185 Mt of carbon in 1980 and 5711-6480 Mt since 1795. Despite occupying an area equivalent to only 2% of the world's tropical forest, the wetlands have experienced an annual shift in carbon balance 15-18% as great. Wetlands thus are seen on an area-specific basis to be concentrated sources of atmospheric CO2 which respond differently from those ecosystems assumed to have no net carbon exchange before disturbance.

Diversity-dependent production can decrease the stability of ecosystem functioning

Abstract: There is concern that species loss may adversely affect ecosystem functioning and stability. But although there is evidence that biodiversity loss can lead to reductions in biomass production, there is no direct evidence that biodiversity loss affects ecosystem resistance (ability to withstand perturbation) or resilience (recovery from perturbation). Yet theory, laboratory experiments and indirect experimental evidence strongly suggest that diversity and stability are related. Here we report results from a field experiment with factorially crossed perturbation and diversity manipulations. We simulated drought perturbation on constructed grassland ecosystems containing 1, 2, 4, 8 or 32 plant species. Under unperturbed conditions, the species-poor systems achieved lower biomass production than the species-rich systems. However, the species-poor systems were more resistant to perturbation than the species-rich systems. The species-poor systems also showed a larger initial resilience following perturbation, although the original relationship between diversity and productivity was fully restored after 1year. Our results confirm that biodiversity increases biomass production, but they also point to the fact that such diversity--production associations may lead to an inverse relationship between biodiversity and the stability of ecosystem functioning.

Understanding the Effects of Marine Biodiversity on Communities and Ecosystems

Abstract: There is growing interest in the effects of changing marine biodiversity on a variety of community properties and ecosystem processes such as nutrient use and cycling, productivity, stability, and trophic transfer. We review published marine experiments that manipulated the number of species, genotypes, or functional groups. This research reveals several emerging generalities. In studies of primary producers and sessile animals, diversity often has a weak effect on production or biomass, especially relative to the strong effect exerted by individual species. However, sessile taxon richness did consistently decrease variability in community properties, and increased resistance to, or recovery from disturbance or invasion. Multitrophic-level studies indicate that, relative to depauperate assemblages of prey species, diverse ones (a) are more resistant to top-down control, (b) use their own resources more completely, and (c) increase consumer fitness. In contrast, predator diversity can either increase or decrease the strength of top-down control because of omnivory and because interactions among predators can have positive and negative effects on herbivores. Recognizing that marine and terrestrial approaches to understanding diversity-function relationships are converging, we close with suggestions for future research that apply across habitats.

Rhizosphere processes are quantitatively important components of terrestrial carbon and nutrient cycles.

Abstract: While there is an emerging view that roots and their associated microbes actively alter resource availability and soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition, the ecosystem consequences of such rhizosphere effects have rarely been quantified. Using a meta-analysis, we show that multiple indices of microbially mediated C and nitrogen (N) cycling, including SOM decomposition, are significantly enhanced in the rhizospheres of diverse vegetation types. Then, using a numerical model that combines rhizosphere effect sizes with fine root morphology and depth distributions, we show that root-accelerated mineralization and priming can account for up to one-third of the total C and N mineralized in temperate forest soils. Finally, using a stoichiometrically constrained microbial decomposition model, we show that these effects can be induced by relatively modest fluxes of root-derived C, on the order of 4% and 6% of gross and net primary production, respectively. Collectively, our results indicate that rhizosphere processes are a widespread, quantitatively important driver of SOM decomposition and nutrient release at the ecosystem scale, with potential consequences for global C stocks and vegetation feedbacks to climate.

Balance between community assembly processes mediates species coexistence in agricultural soil microbiomes across eastern China.

Abstract: Revealing the linkages between community assembly and species coexistence, which is crucial for the understanding of ecosystem diversity and functioning, is a fundamental but rarely investigated subject in microbial ecology. Here we examined archaeal, bacterial, and fungal community assembly in adjacent pairs of maize (water-unsaturated) and rice (water-saturated) fields across different habitats and regions throughout Eastern China. The high-throughput sequencing dataset was analyzed by variation partitioning, null model, and neutral community model analyses. We demonstrated that microbial community assembly was governed more by species sorting than by dispersal limitation in maize fields, and to a lesser extent in rice fields. The relative importance of species sorting in maize soils was greater at low latitudes than at high latitudes, while rice soils exhibited an opposite trend. Microbial co-occurrence associations tended to be higher when communities were primarily driven by dispersal limitation relative to species sorting. There were greater community dissimilarities between maize and rice soils in low-latitude regions, which was consistent with the higher proportion of negative edges in the correlation networks. The results indicate that a balance between species sorting and dispersal limitation mediates species coexistence in soil microbiomes. This study enhances our understanding of contemporary coexistence theory in microbial ecosystems.