Microbial diversity drives multifunctionality in terrestrial ecosystems

Microbial diversity drives multifunctionality in terrestrial ecosystems

Despite the importance of microbial communities for ecosystem services and human welfare, the relationship between microbial diversity and multiple ecosystem functions and services (that is, multifunctionality) at the global scale has yet to be evaluated. Here we use two independent, large-scale databases with contrasting geographic coverage (from 78 global drylands and from 179 locations acros...

Terrestrial Vertebrate Diversity and Demography in Tropical Ecosystems

Can Climate Change Trigger Massive Diversity Cascades in Terrestrial Ecosystems

We summarize research on diversity and trophic interactions under a trophic cascades model that is reframed and expanded from the traditional biomassor abundancebased indirect effects and discuss the response of such ―diversity cascades‖ to climate change and other global change parameters. The studies we summarize encompass dynamic processes in which species richness or evenness in one trophic...

Diversity, stability, and reproducibility in stochastically assembled microbial ecosystems

Microbial ecosystems are remarkably diverse, stable, and often consist of a balanced mixture of core and peripheral species. Here we propose a conceptual model exhibiting all these emergent properties in quantitative agreement with real ecosystem data, specifically species abundance and prevalence distributions. Resource competition and metabolic commensalism drive stochastic ecosystem assembly...

Diversity of Plants and Animals in Mountain Ecosystems in Tajikistan

Tajikistan is a hotspot of plant and animal species diversity and endemism andis important for the conservation of biodiversity on a global scale. The country is located ata biological crossroads. Species from Central and Northern Europe, Central Asia, theMiddle East, and North Africa mingle here with endemics found nowhere else. Therichness of Tajikistan‘s biodiversity shows up at the genetic,...