Reassessing the observational evidence for nitrogen deposition impacts in acid grassland: spatial Bayesian linear models indicate small and ambiguous effects on species richness.

ABSTRACT: Nitrogen deposition (Ndep) is considered a significant threat to plant diversity in grassland ecosystems around the world. The evidence supporting this conclusion comes from both observational and experimental research, with "space-for-time" substitution surveys of pollutant gradients a significant portion of the former. However, estimates of regression coefficients for Ndep impacts on species richness, derived with a focus on causal inference, are hard to locate in the observational literature. Some influential observational studies have presented estimates from univariate models, overlooking the effects of omitted variable bias, and/or have used P-value-based stepwise variable selection (PSVS) to infer impacts, a strategy known to be poorly suited to the accurate estimation of regression

SUBMITTER: Pescott OL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7195837 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature