Dataset Information

Trophic complexity alters the diversity-multifunctionality relationship in experimental grassland mesocosms.

ABSTRACT: Plant diversity has a positive influence on the number of ecosystem functions maintained simultaneously by a community, or multifunctionality. While the presence of multiple trophic levels beyond plants, or trophic complexity, affects individual functions, the effect of trophic complexity on the diversity-multifunctionality relationship is less well known. To address this issue, we tested whether the independent or simultaneous manipulation of both plant diversity and trophic complexity impacted multifunctionality using a mesocosm experiment from Cedar Creek, Minnesota, USA. Our analyses revealed that neither plant diversity nor trophic complexity had significant effects on single functions, but trophic complexity altered the diversity-multifunctionality relationship in two key ways: It lowered the maximum strength of the diversity-multifunctionality effect, and it shifted the relationship between increasing diversity and multifunctionality from positive to negative at lower function thresholds. Our findings highlight the importance to account for interactions with higher trophic levels, as they can alter the biodiversity effect on multifunctionality.

SUBMITTER: Anujan K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8207441 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Trophic complexity alters the diversity-multifunctionality relationship in experimental grassland mesocosms.

Anujan Krishna K Heilpern Sebastian A SA Prager Case M CM Weeks Brian C BC Naeem Shahid S

Ecology and evolution 20210331 11

Plant diversity has a positive influence on the number of ecosystem functions maintained simultaneously by a community, or multifunctionality. While the presence of multiple trophic levels beyond plants, or trophic complexity, affects individual functions, the effect of trophic complexity on the diversity-multifunctionality relationship is less well known. To address this issue, we tested whether the independent or simultaneous manipulation of both plant diversity and trophic complexity impacted ...[more]

PMID: 34141232

Similar Datasets

Project description:IntroductionLong-term grazing profoundly affects grassland ecosystems, whereas how the soil microbiome and multiple soil ecosystem functions alter in response to two-decades of grazing, especially how soil microbiome (diversity, composition, network complexity, and stability) forms soil multifunctionality is rarely addressed.MethodsWe used a long-term buffalo grazing grassland to measure the responses of soil physicochemical attributes, stoichiometry, enzyme activities, soil microbial niche width, structure, functions, and networks to grazing in a subtropical grassland of Guizhou Plateau, China.ResultsThe evidence from this work suggested that grazing elevated the soil hardness, available calcium content, and available magnesium content by 6.5, 1.9, and 1.9 times (p = 0.00015-0.0160) and acid phosphatase activity, bulk density, pH by 59, 8, and 0.5 unit (p = 0.0014-0.0370), but decreased the soil water content, available phosphorus content, and multifunctionality by 47, 73, and 9-21% (p = 0.0250-0.0460), respectively. Grazing intensified the soil microbial carbon limitation (+78%, p = 0.0260) as indicated by the increased investment in the soil β-glucosidase activity (+90%, p = 0.0120). Grazing enhanced the complexity and stability of the bacterial and fungal networks but reduced the bacterial Simpson diversity (p < 0.05). The bacterial diversity, network complexity, and stability had positive effects, while bacterial and fungal compositions had negative effects on multifunctionality.DiscussionsThis work is an original attempt to show that grazing lowered multifunctionality via the reduced bacterial diversity and shifted soil bacterial and fungal compositions rather than the enhanced bacterial and fungal network complexities and stability by grazing. Protecting the bacterial diversity from decreasing, optimizing the composition of bacteria and fungi, and enhancing the complexity and stability of bacterial network may be conducive to improving the soil multifunction of grazing grassland, on a subtropical grassland.

Project description:Loss in plant diversity is expected to impact biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) in terrestrial ecosystems. Soil microbes play essential roles in regulating ecosystem functions. However, the important roles and differences in bacterial and fungal diversity and rare microbial taxa in driving soil multifunctionality based on plant diversity remain poorly understood in grassland ecosystems. Here, we carried out an experiment in six study sites with varied plant diversity levels to evaluate the relationships between soil bacterial and fungal diversity, rare taxa, and soil multifunctionality in a semi-arid grassland. We used Illumina HiSeq sequencing to determine soil bacterial and fungal diversity and evaluated soil functions associated with the nutrient cycle. We found that high diversity plant assemblages had a higher ratio of below-ground biomass to above-ground biomass, soil multifunctionality, and lower microbial carbon limitation than those with low diversity. Moreover, the fungal richness was negatively and significantly associated with microbial carbon limitations. The fungal richness was positively related to soil multifunctionality, but the bacterial richness was not. We also found that the relative abundance of saprotrophs was positively correlated with soil multifunctionality, and the relative abundance of pathogens was negatively correlated with soil multifunctionality. In addition, the rare fungal taxa played a disproportionate role in regulating soil multifunctionality. Structural equation modeling showed that the shift of plant biomass allocation patterns increased plant below-ground biomass in the highly diverse plant plots, which can alleviate soil microbial carbon limitations and enhance the fungal richness, thus promoting soil multifunctionality. Overall, these findings expand our comprehensive understanding of the critical role of soil fungal diversity and rare taxa in regulating soil multifunctionality under global plant diversity loss scenarios.

Project description:IntroductionPlant diversity and soil microbial diversity are important driving factors in sustaining ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) in terrestrial ecosystems. However, little is known about the relative importance of plant diversity, soil microbial diversity, and soil microbial network complexity to EMF in tropical rainforests.MethodsThis study took the tropical rainforest in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, China as the research object, and quantified various ecosystem functions such as soil organic carbon stock, soil nutrient cycling, biomass production, and water regulation in the tropical rainforest to explore the relationship and effect of plant diversity, soil microbial diversity, soil microbial network complexity and EMF.ResultsOur results exhibited that EMF decreased with increasing liana species richness, soil fungal diversity, and soil fungal network complexity, which followed a trend of initially increasing and then decreasing with soil bacterial diversity while increasing with soil bacterial network complexity. Soil microbial diversity and plant diversity primarily affected soil nutrient cycling. Additionally, liana species richness had a significant negative effect on soil organic carbon stocks. The random forest model suggested that liana species richness, soil bacterial network complexity, and soil fungal network complexity indicated more relative importance in sustaining EMF. The structural equation model revealed that soil bacterial network complexity and tree species richness displayed the significantly positive effects on EMF, while liana species richness significantly affected EMF via negative pathway. We also observed that soil microbial diversity indirectly affected EMF through soil microbial network complexity. Soil bulk density had a significant and negative effect on liana species richness, thus indirectly influencing EMF. Simultaneously, we further found that liana species richness was the main indicator of sustaining EMF in a tropical rainforest, while soil bacterial diversity was the primary driving factor.DiscussionOur findings provide new insight into the relationship between biodiversity and EMF in a tropical rainforest ecosystem and the relative contribution of plant and soil microibal diversity to ecosystem function with increasing global climate change.

Dataset Information

Trophic complexity alters the diversity-multifunctionality relationship in experimental grassland mesocosms.

Publications

Trophic complexity alters the diversity-multifunctionality relationship in experimental grassland mesocosms.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets