Variability of functional and biodiversity responses to perturbations is predictable and informative.

ABSTRACT: Perturbations such as climate change, invasive species and pollution, impact the functioning and diversity of ecosystems. However diversity has many meanings, and ecosystems provide a plethora of functions. Thus, on top of the various perturbations that global change represents, there are also many ways to measure a perturbation's ecological impact. This leads to an overwhelming response variability, which undermines hopes of prediction. Here, we show that this variability can instead provide insights into hidden features of functions and of species responses to perturbations. By analysing a dataset of global change experiments in microbial soil systems we first show that the variability of functional and diversity responses to perturbations is not random; functions that are mechanisticall

SUBMITTER: Orr JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11604961 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature