Biotic and anthropogenic forces rival climatic/abiotic factors in determining global plant population growth and fitness.

ABSTRACT: Multiple, simultaneous environmental changes, in climatic/abiotic factors, interacting species, and direct human influences, are impacting natural populations and thus biodiversity, ecosystem services, and evolutionary trajectories. Determining whether the magnitudes of the population impacts of abiotic, biotic, and anthropogenic drivers differ, accounting for their direct effects and effects mediated through other drivers, would allow us to better predict population fates and design mitigation strategies. We compiled 644 paired values of the population growth rate (λ) from high and low levels of an identified driver from demographic studies of terrestrial plants. Among abiotic drivers, natural disturbance (not climate), and among biotic drivers, interactions with neighboring plants

SUBMITTER: Morris WF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6969536 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature